Holding On and Letting Go
by GoingVintage
Summary: Puck hasn't been home in ten years and it took a family loss to force him back to Lima.  Rachel was living the life she thought she wanted. When Puck and Rachel meet up again, the past will resurface and the future, once so sure, will hang in the balance.
1. Chapter 1

The fact that "Puck" was still clearly legible, scrawled across the city of Lima water tower in fading black paint, was comforting to Noah Puckerman as he drove into his hometown. The sun was dropping behind the tree line in the distance, tinting everything with a pinkish-orange hue. The thrumming of his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of Metallica slowed, though, his chest tightening, as he turned onto Folton Street. When he pulled to a stop in front of the house, he swallowed three times, turned the radio off, and took a quick swig of the Dr. Pepper sitting in the console.

Shutting the engine off, Puck stared at the white house. It looked the same. The shutters were still taupe, the left one attached to his bedroom window still hanging crookedly from years of his using it for support when he stealthily slipped in and out of the house. The porch swing chain was still rusty; the mailbox still hung at a slightly odd angle. Guilt assuaged Puck as he stared at the house. _I should have been home to fix those things for Ma. _

It took him a few more minutes to finally push open the door of his midnight blue, crew cab Dodge Ram and step out onto the street. It was just as quiet as he remembered and memories of riding his skateboard up and down the wide sidewalk rushed back to him. Walking around to the back passenger side, Puck was quiet when he opened the door. Grabbing the duffel bag that sat on the floorboards, he threw it over his shoulder and then gently began undoing the seatbelt that held his sleeping passenger in place. As he removed the final strap and lifted the child into his arms, he heard, "Daddy, are we here?"

Puck hoisted his four-year-old son, Jack, into his arms and then nudged the truck door closed with his hip. Before he could even answer his son, Jack's breathing evened out in Puck's ear as he made his way up the sidewalk. Getting the door unlocked with his sleeping son in his arms proved to be precarious but a few minutes later, Puck was putting his son down on his old bed. Jack immediately curled into a ball and Puck pulled the blanket up over him and then smoothed his large hand over his son's Mohawk, grinning as he remembered taking him to get that haircut after enduring his begging for nearly a year to have hair "just like you used to have, Dad."

Once Puck was sure Jack was asleep, he closed his bedroom door and slipped down the steps. The house was silent and cold. Shoving his hands into his pockets, Puck walked first into the dining room and then into the living room. Spotting his mother's reading glasses lying on the end table next to a Stephen King book that had a marker shoved into the pages nearly halfway through, his eyes began to burn.

He turned away quickly from the book and the glasses; the idea that his mother would never finish that book was sobering. Walking across the room, he stopped in front of the bookshelf. It was scattered with all of Miriam Puckerman's favorite memories. There was a picture of him at just two, running through a sprinkler with a huge smile on his face. As Puck started at the small image of himself, he was struck with how much Jack looked like him as a kid. The next picture was of his sister, Rebecca, riding on a pony at her 12th birthday party.

One by one, Puck's eyes moved over the framed photos, the memories rushing in and swirling around like a blizzard. When he spotted a picture of the McKinley High School Glee Club from his senior year, he darted his eyes away, unwilling to go _there _just then. The next few pictures were of much fonder memories: his graduation from the United States Navy's basic training, his graduation from Naval Aviation School. The next picture was of his 24-year-old self, a look of both terror and awe on his face as he held his newborn son. He frowned at the tumultuous memories of Kirsten throwing things into a bag and announcing that she wasn't cut out for motherhood when Jack was only two weeks old. Four years later, Puck could honestly say that he was relieved that Kirsten wasn't in their life. Other than unbridled sex, the only good thing Kirsten ever did for him was leave Jack in his care. Life as an active duty Navy pilot with a small son was never easy but he'd made it. His brothers in the United States Navy were his family. When he'd been deployed to Afghanistan for nine months, Jack had stayed with a close friend of Puck's on base. The time apart from his son had nearly killed him but when Puck had returned home, he immediately put in for and was picked as a flight instructor. It meant he could stay stateside and raise his son. He'd been meaning to get home to Lima to see his mother for a few years now. She'd invited him home every Thanksgiving and every Hanukkah and he knew she always hid her disappointment when he blew her off. But life in the Navy was just too good and Lima, even with his mother there, held too many memories that he'd rather forget.

As Puck's eyes moved over the remaining pictures, he finally settled on the family photo taken at his high school graduation. His mother had been beaming with pride. Even ten years later, the shock that her son had actually graduated high school was so evident on her face that it made Puck chuckle. His chest ached, though, because just days later, he'd packed his bags, kissed her on the cheek, and took off for basic training. He'd only left one instruction before he'd caught that Megabus to Great Lakes, Illinois to go to boot camp: "Don't tell anybody where I went." Miriam was clearly confused but Puck had placed both hands on her shoulders and locked his hazel eyes with hers, imploring, "Please, Ma. I know it doesn't make much sense but I just want to leave, okay? I'm just… I'm done with Lima and everybody. So if anybody asks, like, Finn or Quinn or Rachel, don't tell them. Just tell them I'm travelling the country while I try to decide what to do with my life or something. Anything, really. I honestly don't give a fuck what you tell any of them."

Hindsight had given Puck more than just 20/20 vision. It had filled him with regrets. Because of his refusal to come back to Lima no matter what, he'd only seen his mother when she'd flown to whatever base he'd been assigned to at the time. Because of her willingness to chase after her son everywhere he went, Puck hadn't missed out on a lot with his mother. He'd rarely seen his sister, though, because she'd been too busy growing up to really give a damn about what her big brother was doing. Now, though, as Puck gazed at his mother's picture on the bookshelf, regret nearly sucked the air from his lungs. His mother was gone – dead from a heart attack as she'd driven to work three days prior. There would be no more chances for him to come home to Lima to spend time with her.

Spinning on his heel away from the memories, he walked across the room and plopped down onto the couch. As he stretched his legs out on the couch, he let out a bitter, pained laugh at the irony of the situation. Ma had been hounding him for two years to take an extended leave to come home and spend time with her. "You can't run from your demons forever, Noah," she'd told him. "At some point, you have to face them so that they quit haunting you."

Now he was home for his extended leave – one month to be exact - and he knew that he'd have to face those demons that had driven him away a decade before. Oh, he'd try to avoid them as long as possible but he knew that eventually while he was home, they'd haunt him. He just hoped he could get his mother's funeral over with and get her properly buried before he had to face any of the reasons he'd left town like there were hellhounds on his tail.

Grabbing the remote, Puck flipped on the television and thumbed the channel down to ESPN. Closing his eyes, he tucked his hands behind his head and sighed. Jack would wake up soon enough and want some dinner. Puck was exhausted from the drive and needed to quiet the filmstrip of memories in his head. As he nodded off, he told himself that tomorrow would be soon enough to deal with it all.

…

Chiles-Laman Funeral Home in Lima was packed the next day. Puck stood awkwardly in front of his mother's open casket in his full Navy dress blues. A line of people waited to look into open casket and offer their condolences to both Puck and his sister. Becca, who was totally exhausted from sitting with their mother's body nearly the entire time since her passing as was Jewish custom, stood at Puck's side with tired, swollen eyes. Her boyfriend, a 22-year-old graduate student majoring in Chemical Engineering that Puck thought was too much of a dork to be with his sister, was hovering nearby, entertaining Jack with the gaming apps on his mobile phone.

One by one, Puck greeted the mourners. Some he didn't know but a lot of them, like Will and Emma Schuester and Coach Bieste, he knew quite well, even though he hadn't seen them in a decade. Shannon Bieste, who Puck always had a soft spot for, had tears in her eyes as she hugged him and then stepped back, her eyes roaming over his Navy uniform. "Your mom was proud of you, Puck," she told him, quickly dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, "and she bragged about you every chance she got. I'm glad you made something of yourself, son." Puck was only able to nod, the lump in his throat growing by the second. When Shannon walked away, Puck blinked and glanced down at the carpeted floor as he worked to regain his composure. When he looked up again, he found himself staring into a pair of brown eyes that he hadn't seen in forever but had been unable to forget, no matter how hard he tried. He shifted slightly, his arms tight at his sides, as he stared at one of the very demons – the biggest one, in fact – from which his mother had accused him of running.

"Rachel Berry." His voice was steady but then he corrected himself, "I mean, Rachel Hudson."

Rachel just smiled at him, her eyes watery. Her eyes darted to the casket and then back to him before she reached her hand out and placed it on his arm. He glanced first at where her hand touched him, her gold wedding band glinting in the light of the room, and then up at her face. She looked the same as she had the last time he'd seen her. Same long hair. Same skin that seemed to glow from within. But her eyes told another story and Puck immediately reminded himself that he didn't care. It didn't matter to him if Rachel looked exhausted or sad or even if she started bawling right while she was standing there. He didn't give a damn. He _couldn't. _

After a moment of awkward silence passed between them, he slid his arm away from her and turned his attention toward the person behind her. He saw Rachel blink out of the corner of his eye and then she moved to speak to his sister. Her scent – a strange combination of lemons and sunlight that he'd never been able to place – lingered, taunting him. When the next mourner stepped away, Puck lifted his head in time to watch Rachel pause in front of his mother's casket and close her eyes in a silent prayer. Then she turned and slipped from the room like the ghost of his past that she was.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: So I came out of fanfiction retirement to write this story. It's been bothering me for weeks and I realized that if I didn't get it written, the Puck and Rachel that live in my head would never shut up. So here I am. This story is canon right up through the "Hold on To Sixteen" episode and then it'll take the path that I imagine it _could_ take, based on what I'm seeing in this abysmal third season. I'm planning on six chapters right now, give or take a chapter or two. For now, I'm leaving it as a T rating but that might change, depending on my mood and my adherence to my outline. Anyway, I hope you like what you read so far. I'm really rusty and for that, I apologize!


	2. Chapter 2

Rachel honestly didn't know what she should have expected. As she stomped through the front door of the small two-story home she shared with her husband of eight years, Finn, she kicked her black heels off with such force that they flew across the room and bounced off the burgundy sectional. Tearing her purse off her shoulder and dropping it onto the table, she marched up the stairs to the bedroom and quickly threw off her black dress, sighing as she removed her stockings and shoved them in the hamper. Slowly, as she slipped her legs into a pair of yoga pants and pulled one of Finn's shirts over her head, her anger at what she just experienced dissipated and by the time her feet were securely in her favorite pair of purple flip-flops and she was tugging her hair into a ponytail, her fury had turned to muddled acceptance.

She knew_ exactly_ why Noah had been so cold to her. Ten years might have passed but the conversation they'd had on the bleachers just a few hours after graduation felt as though it had only happened yesterday.

_I know I have really shitty timing but if I don't say this now, Rachel, I'll never say it._

While Rachel went downstairs to get dinner on the stove, memories of their hectic graduation day seemed to slow her steps.

_I know you're with Finn and you think he's what you want but maybe it's not. _

Stepping into the small kitchen, Rachel flipped on the light and then jumped when the light bulb flickered, popped, and finally went out. Glaring at the fixture, she dragged a stool over and climbed up, balancing on her toes as she reached to change the bulb.

_I've tried to sit back and let you just do your thing but this isn't what you really dream about, Rachel. Lima, Finn – it's not what you really want and you know it. You can smile and argue that it's what you want but I know you, Rach. I _know _you, maybe better than Finn does._

After the bulb was changed and the kitchen glowed bright again, Rachel put a pot of water on to boil and then reached for the loaf of French bread she'd purchased the day before. The house was quiet, Rachel's knife slicing through the crusty bread loud enough to muffle the pounding of her heart. Even though she was staring at her cutting board, it was Noah's face she saw. His brow was furrowed and he was fidgeting, glancing off toward the field goal as she waited patiently for him to get to the point. She'd been confused as to why he'd asked to talk to her alone when she had a graduation party to get to but then he'd finally just turned to her, his eyes dark and pleading.

_I wanna be with you, Rachel. In New York. I can't sit by and watch you give up your New York dreams so you can pop out Finn Hudson's fucking babies and never leave this shitty town. I know New York makes you happy and I could make you happy, too. Don't pretend you don't know I feel this way, either, because if you think about it – really fucking think about it – you've known how I feel for a long damn time, even if you pretended not to see it. But if you give me a chance, I'll work every day to make sure you don't regret it, Rach._

Rachel put the knife down with a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. His words had sent her reeling; they were the last thing she had expected to hear and her reaction had been poor. His remarks about Finn and her choices had immediately made her defensive and when she replied, her voice had been shrill with anger. _"Oh, like you wanted to be happy with Shelby? Seriously, Noah, you're constantly falling in 'love' so I understand that you're confused by its true definition but I assure you, what I have with Finn is real. I'm sorry that you can't see that but _he_ is what I want. He's _all _I want. Nothing else, and no one else, matters." _She'd seen his face fall and had immediately regretted the way she'd attacked. His jaw had tensed up and he turned his back on her, walking away from her on the bleachers in nearly the same way he had after they'd broken up their sophomore year of high school.

Rachel had stayed away for nearly a week, giving Noah the space that she knew he both needed and deserved. When guilt finally started to weigh her down, she'd shown up on his door, a plate of "I'm Sorry" cookies covered in green Saran wrap and a hopeful smile on her face. Noah's mother had glanced first at the cookies and then at Rachel before shaking her head. "He left, Rachel. He's… gone."

Rachel had prodded for more information but Miriam had acted as though she didn't know where her son was – or that she didn't want Rachel to know. Rachel still remembered biting back the tears as she handed the cookies to Miriam and fled.

She'd sent a wedding invitation to him two years later, in care of his mother, but Noah hadn't shown up when she married Finn, not that she actually expected him to. In fact, no one had heard from him since graduation. Rachel had assumed that Noah would at least keep in touch with Santana, Artie, Mike, or Sam and but when she prodded, she was honestly surprised to discover that not only had none of them even seen him but that he also never responded to their emails. Noah had simply disappeared.

As the years had progressed, she'd been busy finishing her education, taking over as the choir teacher at Lima Elementary School, helping Mr. Schuester with the glee club, and settling into married life. She thought of Noah less and less but she still missed her friend and hated that he'd cut everyone out of his life. She asked Finn about Noah a few times but each time, he'd seemed disinterested in discussing his former best friend. "He ditched us all, Rachel. Screw him."

Rachel sighed as she brushed the slices of French bread with butter and placed them on a cookie sheet. After she added the pasta to the boiling water, she leaned against the counter and stared at the pattern on the beige linoleum floor. She _hated _that floor. Honestly, she hated the whole house. It had been a surprise wedding gift from Burt and Carole. Finn had been ecstatic that they'd bought them a house just around the corner from Burt's tire shop, which Finn now ran since Burt was a still a politician.

Glancing around her kitchen, Rachel scowled at the cabinetry. It was all wrong. Other than the huge bathroom with the Jacuzzi tub, there was very little about the house that she actually liked. They lived mortgage free, though, and Folton Street was quiet so Rachel had no room to complain. And the last thing she wanted to do was appear ungrateful. Finn's family was wonderful to her. Having one of her best friends, Kurt, also serve as her brother-in-law was wonderful, even if she never saw him because he lived in San Diego with his newest boy toy, a young man of just 21-years-old with the unfortunate name of Rupert.

As Rachel waited for the pasta to cook, she dropped down onto a stool at the bar and lowered her head into her hands. She was much calmer now and rationally, she knew that Noah's coldness toward her wasn't unwarranted. Glancing at the clock, she calculated the time in her head and realized that the burial services would be done by now. Curiosity got the best of her and she found herself rising from her seat to step out onto the porch. The May breeze was strong when she opened the door, the early evening sun warming her face. Looking to her left, she spotted nearly 20 cars lining the street and people seemed to be streaming in and out of Miriam Puckerman's house, just five doors down from her own. She thought of Noah and his sister, Rebecca, and wondered how they were holding up.

Rachel stood outside for a few more minutes and then, remembering the pasta boiling away on the stove, she dashed back into the kitchen and quickly drained the pot. She frowned as she jabbed at the now overly squishy noodles but the clock on the microwave told her that Finn would be home soon. With a shrug, she dumped the noodles back into the pan and finished heating up the rest of their dinner.

Her lesson planner quickly became her distraction from thinking about Noah's reaction to her earlier in the day. As she waited for Finn to get home, she sipped on a glass of tea and studied her plans. School would be out in two weeks so there really wasn't much left to do but still, she had to make sure she had everything prepared.

She was just deciding which song her 4th graders would work on the last week of the year when the front door opened and Finn walked in. His shirt was streaked with grease and his eyes were tired. "Hey," Rachel greeted softly.

Finn nodded to her as he kicked off his shoes and pulled a beer from the fridge. After screwing off the top of the bottle, he took a swig before bending to kiss Rachel's mouth. He ran his and over the top of her head affectionately and asked, "Dinner ready? Starving."

Rachel nodded, dutifully standing up to quickly dish up his dinner. She sat his plate in front of him and he dug in immediately, his hunger evident by the way he shoveled the food into his mouth. After Rachel dipped herself up a small plate of food, she sat down across from him and flashed him a smile. "How was your day?"

"Fine. Sue Sylvester needed new tires."

Rachel snorted. "I'm sure that was an enjoyable transaction."

Nodding, Finn grinned. "I might have accidentally overcharged her because I was in such a hurry to get her out of there. She made Ed cry."

"Ed?" Rachel sputtered, images of the 320 pound, balding mechanic that resembled a sumo wrestler flashing through her mind.

"He's a sensitive guy."

Shaking her head, Rachel took a bite of her bread. After she chewed and swallowed, she offered, "I went to Miriam Puckerman's visitation today."

Finn stiffened for a moment but his face showed no reaction. "Was Puck there?"

"Yes. The funeral followed the visitation and then she was buried. He's apparently staying at Miriam's house if you want to go down and see him."

"Nah," Finn answered swiftly. "Dude didn't have anything to say to me for ten years so I don't have anything to say to him now."

"Finn," Rachel protested, her eyes darkening with irritation, "his mother died!"

Shrugging, Finn took a big bite of his pasta. "Yeah, I know. Still don't have anything to say to him."

Sighing, Rachel stared down into her plate. The rest of dinner passed in near silence and a few minutes later, Finn was pushing back from the table and slipping his shoes back on. "Gotta get back to the shop," he told Rachel as he headed toward the door. She watched him leave without a word, her frustrated sigh filling the room. _Yet another evening alone._

…

The Saturday after Miriam Puckerman was buried was wet and chilly. Rain came down in sheets all morning and Rachel found herself distracted. She tried to read for a while after scrubbing the bathroom tile with a toothbrush and folding the laundry but was unable to concentrate. Finn had barely been home the past few days, work at the shop keeping him there at odd hours. Even though it was a common occurrence, Rachel never really got used to being alone. Earlier in the morning, she'd wandered three streets over to spend time with her fathers. They were finishing up their packing and about to head off to a bed and breakfast in Amish country for some antiquing. With the promise of bringing her back some fresh apple butter, she'd seen them off and then headed back home.

By noon she was so restless that she was going crazy. Whenever she felt that way, the only thing that soothed her was cooking so within two hours, she had three dishes full of gooey, rich chocolate brownies cooling on the stove. She stared at the pans for a moment and wondered what she would do with all of them. Before she even realized what she was doing, she had put plastic wrap over one pan, slipped her feet into the pair of sandals she kept by the door, and was headed down the sidewalk in the direction of the Puckerman home.

Once she was standing on the front step, Rachel paused and actually questioned her actions. Noah clearly didn't want to see her; his reception at the funeral home made it clear that she would be an unwelcome visitor. _Still, _she reasoned, _bringing by brownies is being neighborly. _She ignored the nagging part of her that desperately wanted to make things right with him after all these years.

Inhaling a quick, deep breath, Rachel steeled herself, swallowed against the butterflies in her stomach, and knocked on the door. For a moment, she heard no activity on the other side and then the door opened a crack.

"Yeah?"

Rachel searched for the source of the voice and, after finally lowering her head, she spotted a child's eyeball peering out at her through the crack.

"Hi," she greeted, a smile on her face. "I'm here to bring these brownies by. I was looking for Noah?"

The door opened and Rachel found herself face-to-face with the child she'd seen at the funeral home but hadn't really paid much attention to. Now, though, she nearly gasped. He was a carbon copy of Noah. Same hazel eyes and squared jaw, except in child form. He even had his father's nose. When Rachel glanced at the Mohawk on his head, her smiled turned into a small laugh and she said, "You must be Noah's son?"

The boy nodded and shuffled from one bare foot to another. "Daddy says I'm not supposed to move from the front of the TV but he's in the shower so he don't gotta know." He peered up the pan in her hand. "Those smell like brownies."

Rachel pushed the pan toward him. "They are. Fresh out of the oven."

Standing aside, the child told her, "I guess you can come in. I just hope I don't get into trouble because Daddy says I'm not supposed to talk to strangers, even when they're hot ladies."

His comment catching her off guard, Rachel was shocked but couldn't help but suppress a laugh as she stepped inside the house and closed the door behind her. Boxes, some flat and some full and stacked, were scattered across the front room and it dawned on Rachel that Noah was packing up his mother's home. Her chest ached at the realization.

"I'm Jack."

At the sound of his voice, Rachel turned back toward Noah's son. "Hi, Jack. I'm Rachel. I live down the street from… well, I'm just a few houses down. But I went to school with your father."

* * *

><p>Midway through his shower, Puck decided that he needed to buy a new water heater before he put the house on the market because the current one was shot. He shivered beneath the cold, pelting water while he rinsed the soap off his body and then quickly shut the spray off, reaching for the towel. He paused for a moment when he heard voices downstairs. He'd given Jack explicit instructions not to move from in front of the TV while he showered so he was quick to shove his legs into a pair of worn jeans, pull a sleeveless tee shirt over his head, and then bound down the stairs in bare feet. He skidded to a stop on the old linoleum floor when he spotted his son talking to Rachel, who was standing just inside the front door, a heavy baking dish in her hands. Dread quickly filled him.<p>

When Jack noticed his father standing there, he turned toward him. "This lady said she went to school with you." Rubbing his hand over his Mohawk proudly, he added, "And that my haircut looks just like yours did."

Puck gave his son a tight smile and then nudged him gently in the small of the back. "Go watch some TV, bud."

Jack nodded, peering up at Rachel through long lashes before shuffling back into the living room. Puck watched him plop down on the floor in front of the TV before he turned his attention to Rachel. She was staring at his son, a look of surprise on her face. When she felt Puck's eyes on her, she whipped her head back around and met his eyes. "He's beautiful, Noah. I didn't realize you had a son."

Puck scratched the back of his neck and gazed at Jack. "He's four. He's so much like me that it's scary."

Rachel smiled in Jack's direction. "He seems a little _too_ precocious. I bet you have your hands full."

Slowly, Puck pulled his gaze away from his son and back to Rachel. She was now staring at her dish, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Puck shifted, wondering how he could get out of what he knew was going to be an uncomfortable conversation without looking like an asshole. Finally, he dropped his eyes to the baking dish and asked, "Is that for us?"

Rachel glanced down at the plastic-covered dish in her hand and smiled. "It's just brownies. I didn't know what else to make but I assumed you had an overload of casseroles so I thought I'd make you dessert."

Puck swallowed, taking the dish from Rachel when she pushed it toward him. He spun on his heel to take it into the kitchen and when he turned back around, he was surprised to see that Rachel had followed him deeper into the house. Her eyes moved over the curtains and the decorations on the walls before she said, "This house hasn't changed at all since the last time I was here."

"Me neither. Makes packing everything up easier." Puck sat the dish on the overflowing counter and silently willed himself to not be a total jerk. He wasn't home to deal with Rachel. When he spun back around, he crossed his arms and leaned against the fridge. "First time I've been home in ten years."

He watched Rachel lower her lashes, her cheeks coloring slightly. All he wanted was for her to say goodbye, turn around, and walk out that door. But when she looked up at him, her brown eyes were open and full of emotion. "I'm sorry you never came back home. I can't help but feel like I had something to do with that."

_Yeah, a little something, _Puck thought bitterly. He wasn't about to give her the satisfaction, though. Feigning a lightheartedness that he didn't feel, he shrugged. "Nah. It was my own shit. Had nothing to do with anybody but me."

Rachel met his gaze head-on. "Are you sure? Because I wasn't very nice to you that day on the bleachers and I always re—"

"—Rachel, stop. It doesn't matter. We were 18. I was stupid. None of it fucking matters anymore. I left, I joined the Navy, I got my shit together."

Needing a distraction, Puck grabbed a dish towel and scrubbed at the already clean counter top. He kept expecting her to excuse herself but when a few seconds of silence passed, Puck swallowed against the lump in his throat and asked, his voice casual, "How's Finn?"

"He's fine." Her face transformed into a smile that Puck immediately recognized as her pre-performance smile. It didn't sit well with him because he'd seen that smile a hundred times in high school and it was never real. "He's wonderful, really. Well, we both are. He's busy running Burt's tire place and works really long hours…but he's fantastic."

After tossing the dish towel into the sink, Puck gazed at Rachel. He hoped the disbelief didn't read on his face as he said, "Good. Tell him I said 'hey'."

"I…I will."

Another beat of silence passed before Rachel's shoulders drooped. "I guess I'll go, Noah. I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry for your loss and that if you need anything, you're welcome to call me. I just live five doors down in the house with the bright yellow porch swing."

Puck followed Rachel to the front of the house, an unconformable tension settling between his shoulder blades at the idea that she was just down the street. After quickly checking on Jack, Puck opened the door for her. Looking at her face, he felt a hint of the long-buried emotions he once had trying to surface. He'd always thought she was beautiful and that hadn't changed. She was definitely more grown up than the wide-eyed 18-year-old that he'd once known and thought he had deep feelings for but her smile for him just then was as genuine as he remembered. She was still very much the Rachel Berry he had known (and loved.) And she was definitely still Finn Hudson's.

Rachel headed down the steps and, as she reached the sidewalk, she turned back with a small wave. Puck mock-saluted her and then blew out a heavy sigh laden with emotions he didn't feel like dealing with as he closed the door.

* * *

><p>Rachel walked back to her house, her mind racing. When she walked inside, Finn was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper and eating a sandwich piled high with bacon and ham. She scrunched up her nose as she walked into the kitchen, stopping to grab a banana from the fruit bowl.<p>

"Where'd you go?" Finn asked.

Rachel opened her mouth, about to tell him that she'd been visiting Noah down the street. His reaction a few days ago to the idea of speaking to Noah stopped her, though, and she finally shrugged as she peeled back the banana peel. "Just went for a walk."

"Oh, cool. And it's super-awesome that you made brownies. I'm so hungry."

After giving her a dimpled smile, Finn went back to the sports section of the newspaper. Rachel ate her banana in silence, her mind whirring. Noah had been friendlier to her this time, even though the conversation was still stunted. She hadn't expected them to fall back into the easy relationship they'd had in high school but now, she had a thousand questions she felt desperately needed answering. Why had he left without saying goodbye if it hadn't been for her? Where was he stationed since he was in the military? How long was he in Lima? Where was Jack's mother?

As the questions continued to jumble and build up in her mind, Rachel wished once again that the conversation had been easier. _But, _she thought, _it could get much easier with a little more time and effort. _Without realizing it, Rachel had just made the decision that she was going to see Noah again.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: Thank you all for the welcome back! I forgot how much I actually missed writing fanfiction so it feels good. My writer's block these last few months has been profound and frustrating. If it wasn't for the RPG I'm in, I wouldn't be writing at all most of the time. So writing fic again feels fantastic! Also, I probably won't normally be updating again so soon. I've promised my mother a World War II story for Christmas and considering that Christmas is next weekend, I need to get my behind in gear and get it finished!

**Next up**: Puck learns more about Rachel's life and Puck and Rachel do a lot more catching up.


	3. Chapter 3

A week after the funeral, Puck had finished cleaning out the basement and the attic. Becca would be home in another week, once finals were finished, to go through the huge pile of their mother's belongings that he figured she might want to keep. Together, they intended to clean out each of their bedrooms and then tackle their mother's room. They both knew that would be the hardest thing to handle so even though they weren't the most communicative, emotional family, it would be important to lean on each other as they cleaned out their mother's closet, dresser, and bureau. Her personal effects would flood them both with memories and each hoped the other would make it easier to endure. The rest of the stuff – the things that didn't matter like old toys, clothes, and a huge box of worthless stuff that had belonged to his father – would be sat out with the trash. The house would be put on the market once Puck was done cleaning up the place and had finished with the necessary repair work. He and Becca had agreed to split the profits 50/50. That money, plus the money he was getting from his share of the life insurance, was going straight into Jack's college fund even though he hated profiting from his mother's death.

Each day he found something else that made a place deep in his chest ache with the need to see her again. One day, it was the old baby quilt she'd made for him. Another day, it was something as simple as three hairpins she'd left in a crisscrossed pile in one corner of the upstairs bathroom countertop. He approached packing up the memories and tossing the refuse with military precision, attempting to disconnect from everything but the job at hand. But as much as he tried not to think about his mother, evidence of her was everywhere and he spent most of his waking hours dogged with a profound sadness that he wasn't sure he would ever be able to shake.

After only seven days, he already couldn't wait to get the hell out of Lima.

…

By late Saturday morning, a week and a half after his mother's funeral, Puck was ready for a break from the painful memories that were held inside the house and decided to tackle the junk heap that the garage had become instead. He was digging through a pile of old camping equipment that he'd used back in high school while Jack attempted to bounce a nearly-flat basketball on the driveway before he let out a pathetic little whine and threw the ball into the yard. "Daddy, I'm bored."

Puck looked up from throwing a worn out tent into a garbage bag and spied his son standing there, his hands on his hips, a defiant look on his face that told Puck he needed to spend some time with his kid. Dropping the bag onto the concrete floor, Puck looked around the garage, hoping to find something that would entertain his son. Spotting a small bicycle that still had the training wheels on it, Puck grinned as he moved things out of the way to pull it out. When he sat in front of his son, Jack's scowl turned into a full-grown sneer. "It's purple, Dad. What the crap am I supposed to do with a purple bike?"

Puck snorted. "It was your Aunt Becca's. It's the only bike in here with training wheels so it's either this or my old Big Wheel." Puck pointed toward the dusty yellow and red Big Wheel that was shoved beneath a table in the corner.

Jack's eyes darted from the Big Wheel to the purple bike and back again. Finally, he turned his face up at his father and said, "Big Wheels are for babies…but the bike is _purple_. Do you hate me or somethin'?"

Crouching down, Puck looked his son in the eyes. "What have I told you about big boys?"

Averting his gaze, Jack stared at his shoelaces as he parroted what his father had told him many times before. "Big boys don't whine when they don't get their way. They take whatever life throws at them like a man."

"And you're a big boy?"

Eyes wide, Jack emphatically nodded.

Puck ruffled his son's Mohawk as he stood up and grabbed the bike. "So that means that you can handle a purple bike, right? Because you're man enough to take it?"

Jack bobbed his head and then climbed onto the bike. Minutes later, he was whizzing up and down the sidewalk in front of the house, the fact that the bike was purple and had a sparkly lavender seat all but forgotten. Puck went back to work, tossing junk into garbage bags until he heard the bike skid to a stop next to Puck's truck. "Daddy, can I go farther up the street? It's boring just riding back and forth in front of the house."

After tossing a full garbage bag into the trash bin, Puck stepped out into the sunlight and looked up and down the street. Finally, he shook his head. "I don't see why not. But I'm coming with you the first few times to make sure there're no wild dogs or anything. There used to be a house up the street with a mean-assed dog that tried to bite me a couple of times."

Jack stared off down the street for a second and then shrugged before turning the bike around and heading back toward the sidewalk. Puck slipped his sunglasses over his eyes and followed behind, snickering at the purple and pink streamers that fluttered in the breeze. Jack seemed unaffected, though, his grin huge when he turned around at the corner and zoomed back past Puck in the other direction. The kid was moving at a good clip and when Puck finally caught up to him again, he was heading back the other way. As he approached Jack, he saw him skid to a stop and stare up at a house about five doors down from his mother's. He froze when his gaze followed Jack's toward the house.

Rachel was sitting on the porch swing, her feet tucked beneath her and a book in her hand. As though she felt eyes on her, she looked over the top at her book, first eying Jack and then Puck before she smiled, folded the page over to mark her place, and stood up. "Hi, Jack. How are you?"

Jack waved at her as she stepped off the porch and headed down the sidewalk. Puck was thankful that his aviator glasses were dark as his eyes freely roamed over her long legs, which were bare up to the dark blue shorts that clung to her upper thighs. She was barefoot and her toes were painted a deep maroon. _Still fucking hot, _was Puck's first thought.

"Your bicycle is purple," Rachel bent so that she was eye-level with Jack and tugged at the streamers hanging from the handle.

Jack leaned back on the bike seat and draped one arm over the handlebars, striking a relaxed posed. Cocking his head, he shrugged. "Daddy says I'm man enough to handle it. It's just a purple bike. Daddy always says that it's all about aptitude."

"Attitude, buddy," Puck corrected gently.

Rachel let out a laugh as she stood back up and met Puck's eyes. "He's so much like you that it's terrifying."

"I know," Puck agreed. "I can't help it. I try not to swear so much since he wants to be _just _like me but the kid is my carbon copy most of the time. It'd be disturbing if he wasn't so damn cool." Clearing his throat, Puck looked over the top of Rachel's head toward the house she'd come from. "You live here?"

Rachel nodded. "Burt and Carole bought us the house as a wedding gift. We moved here eight years ago."

Puck nearly flinched at the memory of Rachel's wedding to Finn. His mother had called him to tell him that Rachel had personally delivered it and asked her to get it to him. When he'd told his mom to throw it away, she'd argued that he should at least let her mail it to him. Puck had refused, told his mother to drop it, and never again asked about Rachel's marriage to Finn. His mother, thankfully, had known not to bring the subject up. In all the years he lived with her, he never had to _tell _his mom how he felt about Rachel. Miriam always seemed to just know. She'd mention Rachel in passing through the years, giving Puck just enough information to make him think about her for a day or two. He'd always hated it.

Rachel and Puck both watched Jack as he took off on the bike again before Rachel's voice cut through the awkward silence. "How's the work at your mom's house going?"

"Not gonna lie, it sucks." Puck watched Jack skid to a stop as a tiny, white Pomeranian ran out of a yard and up to his bike, yapping and dancing. His laughter floated back to them and Puck smiled for a moment before he said, "Packing up Ma's stuff just brings back a lot of memories. And I just keep thinking about how I didn't get to fucking say goodbye."

When he felt Rachel's hand on his arm, Puck gazed at her face. She was staring off in Jack's direction but was shaking her head. Her fingers squeezed his forearm compassionately before she let go and dropped her hands to her side. "But you spoke to her a lot, right?"

"Yeah, we talked a few times a week and I paid for her to fly out to Maryland a few times a year to see us."

"You live in Maryland?" Rachel looked surprised.

"Yup, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Pax River, for short."

"Have you been there since you left?"

Puck shook his head. "Nope, I've been in Illinois, California, Afghanistan… You name it, I've been there."

Rachel seemed intrigued but Puck was nonchalant. "I've traveled the world. But we transferred to Pax River when I took the flight instructor's job."

"Do you like it?"

"I miss the skies," Puck confessed. Jack zoomed by them again, waving frantically at Rachel. From behind his dark glasses, he watched Rachel smile at his son and wave back, her motions just as dramatic and animated as his were. Some long-dormant section of his chest tightened at seeing that smile but he refused to entertain the feeling and continued talking. "There's nothing like being up there but for Jack's sake, I needed to keep my feet on the ground for a while."

"You're a good father, Noah. I can't say I wasn't surprised when I met Jack because I hadn't expected it but then again, nothing about you is what I expected."

Puck's jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth, unsure of how to take her statement. When he answered her, his voice was harsh. "What _did _you expect, Rachel? For me to be strung out or drunk off my ass all the time? Once a 'Lima loser', always one, huh?"

"No!" Rachel's eyes widened in horror at his statement, her head shaking back and forth vigorously. "Not at all! What I _meant _is that I thought you'd pursue music. When you…" She paused and looked off into the distance to avoid his gaze. "When you disappeared, I assumed you would go to LA or New York to try your hand at being a musician. That's all I meant."

Deflated, Puck felt a little ridiculous for overreacting but he honestly still didn't know how to handle _this _Rachel. He tried to keep his voice neutral when he said, "Nah, I couldn't make a career with that shit. Hell, you were the only one of us with _true _talent and considering you gave it up, there was no hope for the rest of us."

"I didn't give it up, Noah." Rachel's voice was tight. "I still teach music to children and I help Will with the glee club."

Puck scoffed. "But it's not the same. It's not what you were destined for. Living in this fucking town and teaching music to a bunch of tone-deaf brats isn't what a woman with your talent was supposed to be doing. You could've owned the world damn had you bothered to remember that there was more to life than Lima and Finn."

Rachel gaped at Puck, her cheeks flushing in anger. He knew he shouldn't prod and pick at her but he couldn't help it. He was miserable being in Lima again. From his mother's death to seeing Rachel again to discovering that she was just down the street, he felt like he was trapped. The fact that he was leaving in two and a half weeks seemed to be of little comfort as he stood in the middle of Folton Street with the woman who hadn't wanted him ten years ago and had made her dislike of him so blatantly clear that day. He needed to get away from her before he said anything else that made him look like a jackass.

When Rachel opened her mouth to argue, Puck shook his head, effectively stopping her from speaking. "Shit, Rach, I'm sorry. Ignore me." He glanced up at Jack, who had since climbed off the bike and was now digging a small hole in his mother's yard with a rock. "I'm not trying to piss you off. I just…" Puck scrubbed his hand over his short hair and swore. "I'll see you later."

Before she could say another word, he strode off toward his son, his fists in tight balls at his side. He couldn't figure out who he was more pissed at, himself for still letting Rachel get to him or Rachel for walking away from her dreams.

* * *

><p>Rachel hated that her last conversation with Noah had ended so badly. As Saturday ended and Sunday began, she kept thinking about how angry he seemed to get when he talked about what she had given up. Ten years later, his impassioned speech on the bleachers after graduation replayed in her mind like a recording over and over again. It had been since the moment she saw him again. Part of her was angry that he even <em>had <em>an opinion on her life choices because he'd walked away without so much as a goodbye ten years ago. But the rest of her understood where he was coming from and that made it much harder because that part of her _agreed_ with him. She had given up so much of herself so that she could make a life with Finn. For the longest time, she felt nothing but utter happiness, too, but as the years ticked by, her doubts about her choices began to nag at her. They were small most of the time, easily shoved away again. She'd allow herself a few minutes to mope but then remind herself that a life with Finn, to be so clearly _loved _by Finn, was the thing she'd wanted most since she was fifteen. It had been enough then and it was still enough.

By Sunday afternoon, Rachel was tired of replaying the conversation with Noah in her mind. Even though it was crazy, she knew she needed to talk to him again. She refused to leave things as they were. Finn was at the tire shop, as usual, and she had nothing to do so she slipped her feet into a pair of sandals and locked up the house, making her way to the Puckerman home in less than a minute. When she knocked on the door, it was immediately opened by Noah, who stood there looking rather surprised to see her.

"I wanted to know if you wanted to go for a drive or something. You know, to talk…" Rachel looked away, hating how completely awkward she sounded. When she looked back up, Noah was grinning at her. He looked away toward the front room and Rachel mentally slapped herself because she had forgotten about Jack.

"Give me a minute to get a babysitter and I'm all yours."

Rachel blushed at his smooth tone but nodded mutely as she stepped inside. She watched as Noah picked up the phone, spoke into it in such a low voice that she could barely hear him, and then quickly ended the call.

When he walked back over to Rachel, he slid his bare feet into a pair of white sneakers that were sitting by the door. "Jennifer from across the street has been bugging me to babysit Jack since we got here so she can make extra money. That kid is 16 now. When I left, she was 6 and had the knobbiest knees I'd ever seen. Now she's got a huge rack and I feel like a fucking pervert for even noticing."

Rachel was still laughing when the knock on the door signaled that Jennifer was there and minutes later, they were stepping outside after Noah had finished giving Jennifer all the pertinent instructions on what to do if Jack burnt down the house or cut off his foot.

Wordlessly, they walked toward the truck and Rachel slid into the passenger seat of Noah's truck as he climbed in the driver's side. "Where to?" he questioned.

Rachel paused. "I don't know, honestly. I didn't really think things through. I just wanted to talk to you again since our last conversation didn't end well."

"Because I'm an asshole. Shit, Rach, I told you I was sorry. You can't listen to me."

"No, Noah, that's… it's okay. I just thought we should talk more." Rachel timidly pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Maybe just to catch up some more or whatever but I really don't know where we should go."

Noah turned the truck on and backed out of the driveway, promising, "Don't worry, I know just the place."

They drove in silence and minutes later, when Noah stopped in front of the 7-11, he shushed Rachel when she began to question him by firmly saying, "Be back in two minutes. Don't move."

She watched him disappear into the store, his grey t-shirt clinging tightly to his broad shoulders and biceps. The fact that she had even noticed made her blush and stare out the side window at the dumpster that sat next to the store. When Noah came back, he climbed into the truck, shoved a bag at Rachel, and then started the truck. Soon, they were back on the road and curiosity got the best of Rachel. She pulled open the bag and then laughed as she stared over at a smiling Noah. "A bottle of cheap wine, Noah? Really?"

"Hey," Noah shrugged, "I figured if we're gonna talk, we should drink."

Shaking her head, Rachel continued to smile as they drove out of town. Soon, Noah was turning onto a gravel road that Rachel wasn't even sure she'd ever been on and just two minutes later, he was pulling to a stop at the base of the city's water tower. Rachel peered up through the window and gaped at Noah. "Why are we here?"

"You like a good view, right? C'mon."

Before Rachel could protest, Noah had snagged the bag from her lap and was bounding out of the truck. She watched helplessly as he began to climb the ladder. He paused midway up and looked back down at her. "You comin'? Don't be a chickenshit, Rach. Get your ass up here."

Even though Rachel thought it was a very bad idea, she soon found herself carefully climbing the ladder behind him. When she reached the top, he pulled her up securely and laughed when she pressed her back against the side of the reservoir, her mouth hanging open as she stared down the ladder.

Noah nudged her to follow him and she did, clinging to the side the entire way. When he found the spot he wanted, he sat down and leaned back against the side of the reservoir. Rachel snickered as she realized he was sitting directly beneath the graffiti he'd scrawled on the tower more than a decade before. Noah looked up behind him and smirked at her before holding out his hand. She grasped it tightly and then slid down the side of the wall until she was next to him. She let out a relieved sigh when her bottom made contact with the cool metal and she felt more secure.

The breeze was strong at that height but it felt good on her skin. She closed her eyes for just a moment, letting the air wash over her and when she opened them again, Noah was staring at her. She colored under his scrutiny and looked away, hoping he would turn his attention elsewhere. Once she felt him pull his gaze away, she stared straight out at the town of Lima that was spread out before them. "It looks big from up here," she commented.

"S'not, though," Noah murmured. "Lima's too damn small."

"It's grown since you've been gone." Rachel paused to watch a plane fly over and then asked, "Did you come up here often? And I don't remember when it was that you painted your name up here. Just one day it wasn't up here and then the next day, it was."

Noah sighed as he twisted the top off the berry-flavored wine and took a swig. He made a disgusted face and then pushed the bottle at Rachel, who gingerly took a small sip before handing it back to him. When he took it again, he pulled his knees up to his chest and held the bottle loosely in his fingertips as he said, "This was my spot senior year. After Shelby left with Beth, I came here all the time."

Rachel bristled at the mention of the birth mother that she rarely spoke to. After Shelby had come back to Lima during their senior year, made a mess of things and then left again, Rachel had felt even less kinship toward her than before. Shelby's holiday cards went unanswered and Rachel had avoided reaching out to the woman at all costs over the last decade. Rachel eyed the bottle in Noah's hand as she thought about how to say what was in her head. Finally, she reached for the bottle again and just before she put it to her lips, she admitted, "It took me a long time to be okay with what happened between you and Shelby."

Noah let out a loud snort. "Took me even fucking longer. I don't think I figured out that my attachment to her was really all about Beth until Jack was born." He swiveled his head toward her. "I mean, she's your fucking _mom_. And I fucked her. I'm surprised you didn't kick me in the balls. And I confused love for Beth with love for her and then I was just confused after she left."

Rachel snickered uncomfortably. "I was shocked when Quinn told me and honestly, I think I just wanted to forget it happened. It was too…" She scrunched her face up and shook her head as she finished, "…gross."

"It wasn't gross," he argued. "Just a stupid move."

"Do you still talk to her?"

"Yeah, every once in a while. I see Beth once a year or so. She's growing like crazy. 12-years-old and full of attitude. She reminds me of Quinn, which is kind of horrifying considering what a bitch Quinn is these days. But Shelby's happy. She ended up marrying a dude my age so I guess the whole age difference thing didn't really bother her too damn bad after all." Noah snorted and added, "But I bet you probably knew all that."

Rachel shook her head. "I throw away her cards unopened. I honestly have nothing to say to her."

Noah didn't answer her for the longest time. He took a few deep pulls of the wine bottle and muttered, "That's some nasty shit," before handing it back to her. "I don't blame you, I guess. She treated you like shit both times she was in town. But you can't blame her totally for what happened with me. I did a lot of fucked up crap in high school, Rachel. I was a stupid kid with no role model, a ma who worked too much, and nowhere to put my energy because sports and Glee weren't enough."

"But you turned out okay," Rachel offered.

"I was lucky. It could've gone the other way. If yo—… If I hadn't made the decision to leave town when I did, I don't know what would've happened. It was the rashest decision I've ever made but also my best one."

Rachel took another drink from the already half-empty bottle and watched the cars move along the Lima streets far below them. She didn't really know what to say to Noah. They were _so _different than they had been ten years ago and so much time had passed that she felt, in a lot of ways, like she didn't know him at all. He chose that moment, though, to stretch and drape his arm across her shoulders. Subconsciously, she leaned into him, her head resting on his shoulder. He smelled like he always had and it was comforting that, even after all these years, even though he was a successful Navy officer with a child and a life that didn't involve Lima at all, he was still the same guy underneath. Rachel closed her eyes as she leaned against him but stiffened moments later when she reminded herself that she was a married woman. She tried to slip from beneath Noah's arm but he tightened his arm around her and shook his head and urged her softly to relax.

Rachel forced out the feelings of guilt, reminding herself that she wasn't doing anything but catching up with an old friend. She leaned her head against his shoulder again and closed her eyes, letting out a soft sigh.

"Are you happy?"

His question caught her off guard and Rachel jerked her head up to look at him. His eyes were dark and shadowed but his stare was intense.

"Yes, I'm very happy."

"So you don't regret giving up everything you wanted?"

Rachel grabbed at the wine bottle again and took a slow, deep pull from the bottle as his question whirred inside her head. When she shoved the bottle back at him, she closed her eyes again and pressed her head against his arm. "No, I don't, Noah."

"So things with Finn are good? You guys are solid?"

Rachel could tell that he was prodding and she refused to give him any insight into her life because if she laid it bare for _him, _it meant that she would have to address it herself. "We're solid. He works a lot of hours to keep the tire shop running. He had to let go of a few employees so he has to make up the hours to keep the place running. I don't see him that much but we're completely happy."

Noah let out a little "hmm" as he took the wine bottle and drained the last of the liquid. When he raised his arm and chucked it into the woods below them, Rachel let out a gasp and smacked his arm. "You littered, Noah!"

He just shrugged and leaned his head against the wall behind them again. When he stayed quiet for a few minutes, Rachel let herself relax, believing that his line of questioning was over. Soon, though, he was at it again. "Do you at least ever go to New York, Rachel?"

"No," Rachel admitted sadly. "There just hasn't been any time."

"It's a five-hour train ride from where I live," Noah told her. "I go up a few times a year. I even took Ma to see the 'Wicked' revival on Broadway last year."

Rachel's heart ached at the mention of one of her favorite musicals, the memory of singing on the Gershwin Theater stage with Kurt during their junior year trip to show choir nationals still so strong and vivid inside her. Eyes suddenly burning with unshed tears, Rachel glanced away from Noah and off into the distance of the Ohio countryside. Gently rolling farmland stretched into the horizon but instead of making her feel at ease, Rachel was suddenly filled with bitter resentment. She swallowed a few times and when she glanced back at Noah, his eyes were on her. He leaned in slightly as she tilted her head toward him and she swore that he was going to kiss her. His gaze moved over her face, first to her lips and then up to her eyes before dropping to her lips again. She held her breath, telling herself that kissing him would be absolutely inexcusable even as her head angled toward him, her lips parting. But in the next moment, he was turning his head away and staring out over Lima. The spell was broken and a wave of relief followed quickly by a wave of regret washed through her. She blinked and licked her lips as she found her voice and said, "I'm sure your mother enjoyed 'Wicked.' I heard good things about the revival."

"You could've been Elphaba, Rach," Noah said softly.

The pain in Rachel's heart seemed to pulse and she swallowed, murmuring quietly, "Noah, please…"

He appeared to understand and nodded. Seconds later, though, he reiterated his earlier question. "So do you regret it?"

Rachel's eyes snapped closed and she blew out a sigh. Admitting it to him meant admitting it to herself but then and there, it felt right when she said, "Sometimes, yes."

Noah seemed satisfied at her answer and tugged her closer. With the conversation done, he sat quietly and left Rachel with her thoughts as the sun set over Lima. She thought about her dreams of Broadway, about his speech to her on graduation day, and about Finn. It was only then and there on that water tower that she could even admit the truth. In fact, the truth was staring her in the face and had been for a very long time: she regretted nearly every decision she'd made since she graduated high school. The realization made her blink back tears and when they began to fall, she turned her head away again so that Noah couldn't see them. He swore softly and pulled her into his lap, his head resting on her shoulder as he shushed her and told her, "I wasn't trying to upset you, Rachel. _Fuck. _Stop crying, please. Don't cry. I'm an asshole. I swear I'll take you home right now and you won't see me ever again if it means you'll stop crying."

Rachel let out a sad laugh and shook her head, batting at the tears on her cheeks while her face flooded with embarrassment. "It's not your fault, Noah. You're just making me think about a lot of things that I've been ignoring for a very long time."

"I'm really fucking sorry. I don't know when to quit."

"Noah, quiet." Rachel placed her hands on his shoulders and gazed into his concerned eyes. Memories of solos and duets, high-fives and co-conspiring flew through her mind and she sighed, leaning into him. "I missed you."

He rubbed her back awkwardly. "I missed you, too, Rach." When she pulled back and wiped at her eyes again, he smiled. "You okay now? Should I take you home?"

Rachel looked out over Lima before nodding. "It's late. I'm sure Finn's home by now. I probably better get back."

Noah nudged her up from his lap carefully and then climbed down the ladder, staying close to her as she followed him down. When she was near the last rung, he grabbed her by the waist and plopped her back onto solid ground. She gave him a shy smile and then climbed into his truck, unsure of how to act after what had just transpired.

The drive back into town was quiet. Noah turned the radio on and seemed to hum along with whatever was playing but Rachel couldn't focus on anything but what had happened up on the water tower. She felt shaken to her very core. She hoped, though, that once Noah left and life returned to normal again, the old regrets that were burning inside her would settle down, too.

_They will, _she told herself as Noah turned onto Folton Street and stopped in front of her house. _I'm fine. Everything is fine. _

After giving Noah a bright smile and promising that she'd see him soon, she slid from the truck. Her last thought as she stepped inside to greet Finn was that Noah had nearly kissed her on that water tower – and that she'd wanted it to happen.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note:<strong> So….. here we are. Things are getting a little confusing and messy! And there's more to come.

I have five songs that I listen to over and over again while writing this fic and I thought I'd share them. The first one is Ross Copperman's "Holding On and Letting Go" (of course), followed by Hot Chelle Rae's "Bleed", Scala and Kolacny Brother's version of "With or Without You (it's gorgeous), Lady Antebellum's "If I Knew Then", and Jordan Knight's "Inside."

I got my mom's Christmas story done and I'm on vacation from work next week so expect another update. Happy Holidays!


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** As you may have noticed, I had to change the rating of this story to M…

* * *

><p>Wrapping up the school year was always bittersweet for Rachel. While she relished her time off and her ability to do whatever she wanted for a few months, the idle time she had always left her feeling restless. This restlessness, though, had crept in early thanks to her weekend encounter with Noah at the water tower. While Rachel said goodbye to her students for the summer and began her normal act of tearing down the decorative bulletin boards that highlighted Broadway shows (because it was never too early to instill a love of arts into a child, even the tone-deaf second graders) and packing everything away until fall, she couldn't help but think about the last conversation she'd had with Noah. It had shaken her at the time, of course, but since then, she'd spent what felt like hours recounting their talk and the way it had made her feel. The things Noah had said had struck deep. They'd hit a nerve and dug in, sticking there in a way that made her chest ache with regret. It was the kind of regret that kept her up at night, flipping through old notebooks and journals that had been filled with dreams. She barely recognized the girl that had written them and it made her hurt so hard inside that it took her breath away. For dredging it all up, she hated Noah. Or she hated herself. She honestly didn't know which.<p>

Her plan was to avoid him until it was no longer possible. She knew he wouldn't totally stay away unless she told him to but her hope was to get through her last school week by focusing on her students. Maybe then when she finally saw Noah again, the wounds from his words, and the cacophony of regrets that now seemed to scream inside her head, would have lessened some.

Her hope was short-lived. When she pulled her car into her driveway on Wednesday, just two days since she'd seen Noah last, she spied Jack waving frantically from the sidewalk. She waved back as she shoulder her bag but before she could safely get inside the house and shut the world out, Jack was hopping off his purple bike and racing down the street toward her. He slid to a stop in front of her and wrapped his arms around her waist in an awkward hug. When he pulled back, he was beaming at her. "Hi, Rachel, how was your day? Daddy said you teach little kids. Are they as little as me or bigger? And do you like them? Because Daddy says that he likes me but that most kids that belong to other people are assholes."

Rachel gaped at the hazel-eyed child in front of her for a second before she snagged her lower lip between her teeth to fend off a giggle. Ruffling her hand over the boy's soft Mohawk, she peered down the street toward the Puckerman house. "Where's your father, Jack?"

Jack shrugged. "Inside. He's working on cleaning out Nana's bookshelf before Aunt Becca gets here on Friday. I'm supposed to stay where he can see me at all times."

"And do you think he can see you from here?"

Jack seemed to be considering Rachel's question for a moment before he finally shrugged. "Guess not. I pro'ly better bet back but I wanted to tell you hi and that you should come over for pizza. We have pizza _all _the time while we're here 'cause Daddy refuses to buy groceries since we're not staying."

Before Rachel could even answer him, Jack turned on his heel and darted back down the sidewalk, quickly launching himself back on the bike before his father could notice he'd even gone. Chuckling, Rachel headed inside the house.

After she changed clothes and pulled her hair into a ponytail, she tromped down the stairs to begin dinner. Finn always came home at 6pm and Rachel prided herself on having dinner on the table. She knew that made her a little _too _like June Cleaver but she couldn't help it – she took her role as his wife seriously. That day, she decided they'd have a simple salad, nutritious salad and garlic bread for dinner because it was hot outside and she didn't want to make the house any warmer by turning the oven on.

Rachel was soon bored, though, and found herself wandering down the sidewalk toward the Puckerman house. Jack was still outside on his bike but Noah had since joined him, sitting in the grass while he messed with a guitar that Rachel recognized from high school. He looked surprised to see her when he lifted his head but he simply nodded quietly and went back to tuning his guitar for a moment before he asked, "How was school?"

Rachel dropped down into the soft grass next to him and folded her legs demurely underneath her as she watched his fingers move over the strings as he plucked, tuned, and plucked again. "It was good. I'm nearly done. The last day of classes is officially tomorrow and then I have one more in-service day after that."

"What will you do with your summer?"

Rachel shrugged as she lifted her face toward the sun. "What I always do - nothing."

Noah seemed to regard her skeptically. "Nothing?"

"Well, not exactly _nothing, _I suppose. I'll reorganize the house, as I do every summer. I'll spend lots of time with my fathers and go visit my grandmother in Cleveland. I'll garden, read, probably take more naps than I should, and indulge in far more vegan ice cream than ought to be allowed."

"Sounds like a relaxing time," Noah commented before he sat the guitar down beside him and stretched his legs out in front of him in the grass.

"It will be, but…" Rachel's voice trailed off as she stopped herself. Her conversation with Noah on the water tower had caused her to reveal too much to him already but since then, all she could think about was how very unhappy she felt most of the time.

"But?" Noah prodded. He'd scooted closer to her in the grass and nudged her with his shoulder. She looked away bashfully before she admitted, "But I'll get bored. And I'll get frustrated because Finn's never home and when he is, he's content to simply do nothing. We don't spend much time together; he's always too busy doing this or that to go anywhere, and I'll inevitably start a fight like I always do when I feel ignored."

Noah seemed to mill over her words for a moment before he asked, "Is he not home a lot?"

Rachel shook her home. "He works really long hours, Noah. He has to in order to keep the business profitable. Burt trusted him with the business and Finn doesn't want to let him down."

"Do you ever feel like he's…" Noah's voice seemed to fade and Rachel turned to look at his face. He seemed to be struggling with what he wanted to say but finally he just shook his head and looked at her, asking point-blank, "Do you think he's cheating on you? You said he works weird hours and he's never home."

Rachel shook her head vigorously. "No, I don't. I know it seems that way but I can promise you, I can go to that garage at any time and find him there. He's not… I mean, he wouldn't cheat."

"You're sure?" Noah's jaw seemed to flex and Rachel reached out, gripping his bicep in a soothing motion. She was touched with how protective he seemed to be over her but she confirmed, "I'm sure. Our marriage might not be full of passion and excitement anymore but I don't believe he would ever cheat on me."

Noah seemed satisfied with her answer and his shoulders relaxed as he leaned back on his elbows in the grass. Rachel mimicked his position and soon, they were both watching a jet leave a fluffy contrail in its wake high in the sky, the white a stark contrast against the brilliant blue of the cloudless day.

"I didn't mean to upset you the other day."

Rachel turned her head toward Noah and nodded slowly. "I know. You didn't upset me, exactly. I just started to think about some things and I let it affect me."

"Like what you gave up?"

Rachel could feel her throat clogging already so she bobbed her head quietly and let her eyes focus on the plane as it silently made its way across the horizon.

"I'm not trying to be an asshole, Rach, but do you know how much it killed me to know that you were never leaving this town all those years ago? it just felt wrong."

Rachel remembered finding out that he was gone, that he hadn't bothered to say goodbye, and that he wasn't coming back. "I think so." She swallowed against the emotions that seemed to be building in her, emotions that seemed to well up and come to a head whenever she was around Noah. "I honestly didn't think about a lot of it for a very long time. But you've said a lot of things lately that have made me contemplate some of my decisions."

Noah swore under his breath. "I don't want to make you miserable, I swear. I need to learn to shut my fucking mouth." He sighed heavily before adding, "I guess I just hate that it feels like you gave up everything for Finn and he didn't give up jack shit for you."

Rachel blinked hard as her eyes begin to burn, her mind spinning to conjure up some form of evidence that Finn _had _given up something in order for them to be together and lead a life in Lima. But she couldn't think of anything and it made her chest tighten with pain.

"If you could tell me that you were 100 percent happy with everything, I think I could learn to shut the hell up." Noah nudged her face toward his, his fingers cupping her jaw, their gazes connecting. "But you don't _seem _happy, baby."

That last word, a simple term of endearment that felt _anything _but simple, seemed to linger between them. Rachel saw a look pass over Noah's face that first seemed like guilt but then transformed into defiance as he held her gaze. She simply swallowed and was preparing an answer that would convince not only Noah but herself that she was perfectly content when they were interrupted.

"Hey, Daddy!"

Jack's happy voice cut through the tense moment and as soon as they both glanced toward the bubbly four-year-old, they were hit with a cold spray of water from the garden hose. Rachel let out a shriek and shot up off the grass as Noah stood up and dove for his son, who was running around the yard, giggling as he kept the hose away from his very nimble, fit father. Noah faked a few misses before finally snagging the hose from Jack and then spraying the little boy as he first ran in circles and then dove behind Rachel, using her as a human shield. She let out a laugh and shook her head as she stared Noah down. He was pointing the water hose in her direction, a smirk on his face. "No, Noah, don't you dare. Don't you _dare_!"

Noah only grinned at her and pulled the trigger, soaking her dark shirt and shorts with cold water while Jack laughed from behind her. She dove for Noah, knocking him to the ground as she jerked the hose from his hands. Jack quickly lunged at his father, sitting on his chest and screaming, "Nail him, Rachel, _nail him_!"

Rachel smiled sweetly at Noah for a split second before she opened up the stream and pelted him in the face with water as he laughed and tickled his shrieking son. When Rachel turned the hose on Jack, the little boy shot off his father's chest and raced up the driveway to hide behind Noah's truck.

Laughing, Rachel dropped into the grass and tucked the nozzle of the hose beneath her leg where she could keep it from being used against her. Noah was still chuckling as he wiped water from his face with the hem of his shirt and when he looked at Rachel, he snorted. "Sorry. You're soaked." His eyes lingered on her chest and when Rachel looked down, she realized her nipples had pebbled against the cold water and were jutting proudly against the dark fabric of her shirt. She blushed but didn't cross her arms to hide them; she was sure Noah was quite familiar with the female form.

"That was fun," Rachel admitted. "I haven't laughed like that in a long time."

Noah pushed himself up off the grass and held out his hand to her. Rachel placed her hand in his and he tugged her into a standing position as he told Jack to go turn off the water spigot. Turning back toward Rachel, he murmured, "Let's go get you a towel."

Rachel's body hummed from the shock of the cold water, she assumed. Stepping inside the house, she noticed more and more boxes were piled up by the door and that the house was slowly taking on an echo as Noah emptied the place out. Seconds later, a fluffy towel was pushed into her arms and she wiped herself down before handing the towel to Jack, who dashed into the utility room and threw it in the washer.

Noah came out of the kitchen in a dry shirt but his jeans were still soaked and Rachel fought against the awareness of his strong thigh muscles. "Rachel, do you want to stay for dinner?" Jack asked.

Everything seemed powerful to her at that moment – from Noah's penetrating gaze to the happy way that Jack smiled at her – and she knew that it was imperative that she leave soon. Glancing down at the little boy, Rachel wished that she could say yes but the clock was ticking and it was nearing 5:30 so she needed to get home to fix dinner. Crouching, she met Jack's eyes. "Maybe another time, buddy. I have to go home and fix dinner for my husband."

When she stood up, Rachel couldn't help but notice that the smile that had been on Noah's face had been replaced with a scowl. She tried to brush it off as she opened the door. With a quick, "see you later," she dashed down the sidewalk and back home, her heart thumping in her chest the whole way.

…

Over the next few days, Rachel found herself gravitating toward the Puckerman house. Even if she wasn't visiting, she found herself glancing in that direction whenever she stepped outside. Sometimes, Noah's truck was gone and she caught herself wondering where he had gone. She knew that his time in Lima was winding to a close and she hated how much the thought of him leaving filled her with dread.

On her last day of school, Rachel felt relief when she finally pulled into the driveway. She was done with teaching for ten weeks and she hoped that this summer would be a relaxing, productive one. As she climbed from her car, she watched a Lowe's truck back into the Puckerman driveway. Noah was standing outside, Jack next to him on the purple bike, as the deliverymen unloaded a big box that appeared to contain a water heater. Soon, another box was pulled from the back of the truck that looked like it held a dishwasher. Realizing she was being entirely too nosy, Rachel quickly darted inside her house to change.

After taking a relaxing bubble bath, Rachel got dressed and headed over to see Noah and Jack. The delivery truck was long gone but the two new items were still sitting on the driveway in boxes. Jack was standing next to them, inspecting them as she walked up. He smiled at her as she approached and said, "Daddy said we have to install new stuff before we sell Nana's house. I hope he lets me play with the boxes."

Rachel grinned at him and smoothed her hand over his head. "I'm sure Noah will let you play with the boxes." Lifting her head, she peered into the open but empty garage. "Where's your daddy, anyway?"

Jack shrugged and climbed onto his bike. "Inside, I s'pose."

The little boy peddled away, now bored with the conversation. Rachel watched him go before shaking her head and stepping inside the house. She found Noah in the kitchen, glaring at the old dishwasher.

"Hi," she said timidly as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Noah grinned at her. "Hey. All done with school?"

"Thankfully," Rachel stated airily. "I'm ready to be done with school for a while."

"I don't blame you. Other peoples' kids are assholes."

Rachel's lips upturned into a grin. "So I've heard you say." Glancing at the dishwasher, she asked, "So I take it you're about to replace that?"

"Yup. Becca will be here tomorrow and she's going to finish up most of the packing and throwing shit away while I start doing the repairs that need done. I have to be back at Pax River in ten days so I need to be wrapping shit up around here."

Rachel bit her lip, unease at the idea of him leaving once again sending an unsettling shockwave through her. "Are you anxious to return?"

Noah turned and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. "Part of me is. I miss my job, yeah." He let his eyes move over her face and the way he looked at her sent a warming jolt down her spine. "But part of me doesn't wanna go, no."

An uncomfortable silence settled between them before Rachel cleared her throat. "Jack wants to play with those big boxes."

Letting out a laugh, Noah nodded. "I know. He made that clear as soon as he saw them. I swear, that kid is a thousand percent me. There's not an ounce of his mother in him."

Rachel opened her mouth and then snapped it shut and looked away. She heard Noah shift against the counter and then he said, "You can ask, you know. Where Jack's mom is, I mean."

Heat bloomed in Rachel's cheeks at the idea that he'd basically read her mind but nodded. "Where is she?"

Noah shrugged a shoulder. "I dunno. Gone. Decided at two weeks old that she didn't want Jack or a life with me and took the hell off. We haven't heard from her since."

Rachel gasped. "That's horrible! How could she walk away from such a precious child?"

"Because she's a bitch, I guess."

Rachel met his eyes and was sure she saw pain in them. She wondered for a moment if he was still in love with Jack's mother but before she could ask, Puck said, "I never loved her. I was too damn busy busting my ass and proving myself to give her the attention she needed so I guess she decided to get knocked up. But reality was a bitch once the baby came and she totally freaked out and decided she couldn't handle him or our relationship anymore."

"He's so wonderful, though. I can't imagine what a horrid woman she had to be to do that."

Noah gave her a half-smile and said, "It worked out for us, though. Jack and I do fine on our own. Yeah, he needs a mom and I hope to give him one someday but honestly, he's a damn good kid, if I do say so myself."

"He is," Rachel affirmed. "He really is. You've done wonderfully with him."

Seemingly uncomfortable with praise, Noah shifted gears and turned back toward the dishwasher. "Hey, Rach, you know anything about dishwasher installation?"

Even though she was clueless, she found herself standing next to him a few minutes later, passing him tools as he requested them. When Jack came in to offer his assistance, Rachel sat down on the floor and pulled him in to her lap and together, they passed things to Noah as he worked. When he told them both that they were awesome helpers, Rachel's grin was nearly as big as Jack's.

…

Rachel spent a lot of time with Noah as the next few days passed. She helped out around the house and once Becca arrived, she helped Noah's younger sister with the task of cleaning out her old bedroom. It felt good to do physically exhausting work as they packed, cleaned, took apart furniture, and moved things around. She had known Becca well as a child and was happy to see that she'd turned into a bright, albeit sarcastic, young woman who seemed to adore her older brother and her nephew.

On Saturday morning, they decided to tackle Noah's room while he installed the water heater and decided if they needed to lay new linoleum in the kitchen. When Becca informed him that she and Rachel were cleaning _his _room, he visibly stiffened and glared at them both. "Just remember that I haven't lived here in ten years so whatever shit you find in there can't be used against me."

Becca tossed her long hair back dramatically and rolled her eyes. "Please, big brother, Mom found your porn collection and threw it out years ago."

Rachel reddened but neither Noah nor Becca seemed to notice. "Porn isn't the only thing I'm worried about." His eyes darted toward Rachel for a moment and then he added, "Just remember that some things are private and if you find shit like that, let me know and I'll come get it."

Rachel cocked her head at him curiously before Becca tugged on her arm and practically pulled her up the steps and into Noah's room.

Two hours later, as Rachel sat cross-legged on Noah's floor, she had full realization of what Noah had been talking about. She held a stack of paper in her hands and as she flipped through it, she was floored with what she had discovered: pages and pages of sheet music, the notes and lyrics scrawled in Noah's own pen. All of them were unfinished and some didn't contain more than a few bars of notes or a several lines of lyrics. And one of them had _her _named scrawled across the top of it. Below it was four lines of lyrics with corresponding notes and as she read the few words that were there, her mouth fell open in shock. His lyrics were about wanting to say the right thing but never finding the words, about never being seen worthy by the one he'd do anything for. He really _had _loved her all those years ago when he'd tried to get her to go to New York with him. Her eyes burned with tears and she looked around the room, trying to decide what she would do with what she'd discovered. Finally, she folded the paper up and tucked it into her pocket. She wouldn't mention it to Noah but she was taking it with her. She _had _to.

…

Noah grilled out burgers for lunch. He'd sent Becca to the grocery store and she'd returned with sirloin for them and Morningstar Grillers patties for Rachel. After they'd eaten, they watched Jack run around the yard, his arms outstretched like he was pretending to fly.

Becca was tapping away on her phone, obviously texting someone, but Rachel's eyes were on the smaller version of Noah that was presently making _vroom _noises as he darted around the yard. "Do you take him flying?"

Noah nodded. "Whenever we can. He loves it. He's been in a cockpit since he was tiny kid."

"It's good that he's not afraid," Rachel observed.

"What's to be afraid of?"

Rachel thought for a moment. "Well, I mean, I'm not afraid of flying, of course, but those small planes make me nervous."

Noah snorted. "You've never been around a fighter jet, have you? Those things _aren't_ small."

"Well, I know that but… still, flying in anything other than a commercial jet _has _to be different."

"So you've never been up in anything but a 737?"

Rachel shook her head and then watched Jack climb up on a big stone before jumping off again. Next to her, she heard Noah shift and say, "Hey, Becca, can you watch Jack for a while?"

"Sure, whatever," Becca said flippantly, never taking her eyes off her phone.

Noah stood up and grabbed Rachel's hand, curling his fingers around hers as he ignored the confused look on her face. "C'mon, you're coming with me."

* * *

><p>Ten years ago, Puck hadn't given a shit about the Allen County Airport. Sure, he'd snuck over there after dark a few times but once he realized that there wasn't anything to do and the hangars were all locked up tighter than Fort Knox, he'd given up and had never gone back again. At the time, he never would've fathomed that he'd excel at flying and would end up being a respected pilot. Now, though, Rachel was in the passenger seat of his truck and was eying him nervously as he pulled the truck to a stop in front of a small, single-story brick building at the edge of the runway. He shot her a lopsided grin and promised her that he'd be right back before bounding out of the vehicle and darting inside.<p>

As it turned out, Naval aviators with proper identification had absolutely _no _problem renting a plane for the afternoon. The woman behind the counter, which Puck vaguely recalled as a Cheerio who had been two years his junior, was flirty and helpful as he filled out the proper forms and handed her his credit card. Minutes later, he had everything he needed and was climbing back into his truck. He threw it into gear and they drove toward the hangar where the Cessna Skyhawk he'd rented for the next two hours was waiting.

Puck laughed at the concerned look on Rachel's face as he climbed from the truck and then came around to help her out. She kept her hand tucked in his as they walked over to the door of the large hangar and didn't let it go until he needed both arms to push the wide, double doors open. Once he was standing in front of the Cessna, he sighed and shook his head as he grinned at her. "Well, it sure as hell ain't a jet but it'll get us in the air. You ready to go?"

"We're really doing this, Noah? You're sure it's safe?"

Puck rolled his eyes. "Please, baby, I'm a skilled pilot. This is a well-respected little aircraft. I promise, you're in good hands."

Rachel gave him a smile but then worried her lower lip between her teeth again. Puck let out a frustrated groan and stood in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. His eyes met hers when he asked, "Do you trust me?"

Rachel nodded. "Completely, yes."

Puck pulled his sunglasses from his pocket and slipped them over his eyes as he smirked at her. "Then let's go."

Grabbing her hand again, Puck tugged her toward the plane. He had her stand at the back of the hangar as he taxied the plane out of the building but once it was out in the open air, he hopped out and helped Rachel climb in. After he was back in the pilot's seat, he went through the pre-flight check and, once he was satisfied that the plane was in excellent working order, he fired up the engine again. The propeller sprang to life and Rachel jumped and then giggled, shooting him a sideways glance as she said, "I've never been in a plane so small, Noah."

Noah's hands moved over the controls and then the plane began to roll, heading slowly toward the long runway. He kept his gaze straight ahead as he slowed down to spin the plane until it was pointed in the opposite direction. Pushing the lever forward, the plane began to move and pick up speed. He grinned as he said, "I prefer small aircraft. Well, actually I prefer fighter jets but anything small is good. I love feeling the controls in my hand and knowing that I can will the craft to do whatever I want." He sat up a little straighter and then added, "Hold on, baby, we're about to fly."

Rachel's fingers gripped the seat as the plane left the asphalt and began the climb into the air. As Noah banked hard to the left, Rachel let out a squeak and closed her eyes.

"S'ok,Rach, just straightening her out."

Puck continued to climb until they'd reached a suitable altitude and then he leaned back into his seat and blew out a breath. "I love being up here."

When Rachel didn't respond, he flicked his gazed toward her and saw that she was leaning into the window, her eyes on the scenery below them. "Can we fly over my dads' house?"

"Sure," Puck agreed. Just over a minute later, they cruised high over her father's house and Rachel grinned happily before settling back into her seat and closing her eyes. "It's not as scary as I thought it would be. I'm used to airline travel, of course, but it feels very different being up here in something so small."

"You okay with it?"

Rachel bobbed her head. "I am. It feels like we're moving very slow or something and it's… it's almost relaxing."

Puck stared out the front window, his eyes on the horizon. "I do my best thinking up here. Ever since the first time I finally got into a jet, I knew this was where I belonged." His mind wandered to the many thousands of hours he'd spent in a fighter jet over the years. A lot of it had been during intensive training that required his full attention but at other times, he was able to just _fly _and in those times, his mind had whirred, his problems all seeming so much easier to digest when he was up in the air. Just like he'd found solace on that water tower back in his final year of school, being up high and looking down on a world that had spent so much time looking down on him was cathartic.

Rachel was quiet for a moment, taking in the sights as they flow over farmland that seemed to extend far out into the distance. The world below them was lush and Puck was glad that he'd gotten to take her up when it looked so pretty down below. After a few moments, she turned her attention toward him. "Noah, how did you know you wanted to be a pilot?"

Puck shrugged. "During basic training, they talked about all our career options and something about aviation really clicked. I thought about submarines, too, but realized I'd probably lose my fucking mind underwater for any length of time so I showed interest in flight. And then once I'd committed to it, I had to excel, become an officer, and prove that I knew my shit."

"You seem happy."

Puck's jaw flexed as he swallowed. He _was _happy. Mostly, anyway. But part of him always felt like something was missing – and that something had been missing for years – and what he knew had been absent from his life all that time was now sitting next to him. And she had no idea how many times he'd angrily thought about her over the years. He'd so desperately wanted her know that she's fucked up when she turned him down because he'd gone and made something of himself. For years, he'd wanted to rub it in her face that she picked Finn over him and had clearly made the wrong choice. Now, though, as he banked the plane in a wide, sweeping turn that brought a nervous smile to Rachel's face as she gripped his arm, the only thoughts in his head were ones of relief. He was glad he had this time with her. He hated that her life wasn't what she wanted and he knew that once he left Lima, she'd sink back into the daily grind of fixing Finn's dinners and wondering about the "what ifs" but now, she was with _him. _Even for just a few fleeting hours, he was getting to share his life with her. That was more than he ever thought he'd get.

"Noah?"

Realizing that he'd slipped into his thoughts again, Puck grinned at her. "Where to, Rach? We have another two hours before I have to bring this baby back. Any place you wanna see?"

Rachel shook her head. "Nope, Noah. Just fly."

Happily, that's what he did.

…

Twilight was settling over Lima when the Cessna sat down on the runway. Puck was silent as he taxied to the hanger and then carefully maneuvered it back inside the big building. Rachel had been quiet for the majority of their time in the air. She'd seemed happy and content to just look out over the Ohio countryside. He knew that she was deep in thought, just as he had been for much of the trip. Not for the first time, he wished he was inside her head a little bit more but when he helped her climb down from the plane, he could tell that she was happy. His hand lingered a little longer than it should have on the small of her back as he opened the truck door for her. She buckled herself in while he ran inside the office and returned the keys to the Cessna and then climbed inside the truck.

"I don't want to go home yet."

Rachel's statement caught him off guard and he started at her, his fingers still on the ignition. "Where do you wanna go?"

Rachel bit her lip and looked away, shaking her head. "Nevermind, Noah. I shouldn't say things like that. I'm sure Finn's wondering where I am again so it's best that you take me home."

Reaching down, Puck unsnapped his seatbelt and then pushed it out of the way as he slid across the truck bench toward Rachel. She watched him, her eyes wide open and full of an emotion he couldn't identify. Concern? Hurt? Confusion? He wished she would talk about it more.

When his thigh was touching hers, she tilted her head and looked at him. "Noah, what are—"

Puck didn't let her finish speaking. Instead, he dipped his head and pressed his mouth against hers. Rachel squeaked against his lips and he could tell that she froze for a second but then she quickly gave in, moaning against him as she clutched at his t-shirt, bunching it in her hands. His tongue tangled with hers, dueling and stroking before she let him inside her mouth. He traced her lips with the point of his tongue when he needed to catch his breath but Rachel pulled him in again, mashing her mouth against his. She lifted her hips off the seat as she tried to touch more of her body to his and Puck groaned, imagining her doing that exact same movement while she lay naked beneath him.

Abruptly, Rachel pulled away, her eyes darting around before she turned to look out the passenger window. Her shoulders were hunched and he could already see the wheels of regret spinning inside her head. "I'm sorry, Noah," Rachel murmured, "I shouldn't have done that."

Puck scratched at the back of his neck as he blew out a breath. Once he'd slid back over to the driver's seat, he shook his head and gripped the steering wheel. "It's not your fault, Rachel. I kissed you."

Rachel bit her lip as she turned to look at him. Her eyes were watery and there were tears clinging to her lashes. "I know." She took a deep breath and averted her gaze. "But I've wanted you to kiss me ever since we were up on the water tower."

Puck nodded silently, the impact of her words not quite sinking in yet. Realizing that he needed to get her home, despite the fact that he felt like his world was just rocked, he threw the gearshift into "Drive" and pulled out of the airport and back onto the highway.

Rachel barely said a word to Puck on the ride home and only whispered a soft "good night" as she climbed from the cab of his truck and dashed into the house. Puck was in a foul, frustrated mood by the time he parked the truck and ambled into the house. Becca was sitting on the couch next to Jack and they were in the middle of a boisterous video game battle. They barely paid him any attention as he walked inside and for that, he was glad. He stomped up to his old bedroom, peeled off his clothes, and then climbed into the shower.

He was unable to shake Rachel from his thoughts as he soaped up and those thoughts, which started out over concern for how confused she seemed to be quickly turned into something much dirtier. He thought about their kiss again, and the way she'd pushed her hips off the seat as if she were quietly begging for more. He imagined tugging her shorts down her trim thighs and slipping his hands between her legs as she opened wide for him. He knew she'd be wet and the thought made him groan and circle his cock with his fingers. His mind rapidly descended into a haze as he pictured her riding him in the cab of his truck, moaning his name and pleading for him to make her come. She'd be _so _fucking tight around him that he'd have to focus on not coming right away but she'd ride him frantically, her need for him as powerful as what he felt for her. His own orgasm was fast, racing through him as he braced a hand against the wall, water cascading over the back of his neck. His eyes were clenched tight as he came, his strokes only slowing when he felt spent. Blowing out a breath, Puck wilted against the shower wall and closed his eyes. He was in a hell of a mess. He was leaving Lima in a week or so and it was probably for the best because this whole "wanting Rachel thing" wasn't working. It felt like high school all over again and just like last time, it wasn't going to end well.

Ten minutes later, he was in clean clothes and was padding barefoot down the steps when he heard a knock on the front door. Neither Becca nor Jack had moved from their good-natured battle so Puck just rolled his eyes at them as he tugged the door open. He stood, shocked, when he was met with the face of his visitor. It was a face he hadn't seen in ten years, virtually unchanged as far as looks went but currently rigid with anger. Finn pushed past Puck and into the house, shoving his hands in his pockets as he turned to glare at his former best friend. When he spoke, the breathless nature of his voice made his anger evident. "Dude, we need to fucking talk."

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: So there we go… More to come! Hope those of you that celebrate Christmas had a nice holiday. We did and it was drama-free, for once. My mom loved her WWII short story and I think I'm going to publish it over on fictionpress so I might link it on my profile here once I do.

Anyway, I'm on vacation this week so I'll probably be writing a lot but if I don't update again before Sunday, have a Happy New Year!


	5. Chapter 5

Noah Puckerman was on the defensive from the moment that Finn Hudson walked into the house. Finn paced in front of the staircase a few times, moving back and forth across the nervously while Puck regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and uneasiness. After a few seconds of silence and once it had become evident that Finn didn't seem to _want_ to actually talk, Puck crossed his arms and pressed his back against the wall as he asked, "Something I can help you with, Finn?"

Finn spun on his toes and glared at Puck, his voice loud and carrying through the house when he answered, "Yeah, how 'bout you stay the fuck away from my wife?"

"Dude," Puck barked, "my son is in the next room so if you want to talk about Rachel, fine, but you need to keep it down."

A guilty look seemed to cross Finn's face and he gave a barely perceptible nod before shoving his fingers through his hair. He was still wearing his uniform from the tire shop, the navy blue shirt and pants covered with oil stains and dirt. He looked tired and a lot older, as if the ten years that had passed since they'd seen one another hadn't been kind to him. "Can we go somewhere and talk then? I didn't realize you had a kid."

Puck ticked up his chin in acknowledgment and muttered that Finn should follow him. Seconds later, they were standing outside. The early evening bugs flitted around their heads but neither man seemed to notice as they squared off, both with hands knotted into fists and jaws set.

"What do you want, Finn?"

"I already told you, asshole. I want you to stay the hell away from Rachel."

A brief moment passed as Puck considered Finn's words. He wasn't sure how much Finn knew and if he _didn't _know about the kiss earlier in the day, he wasn't about to reveal it. Finally, he answered, "I haven't done anything with your wife, man. We're hanging out, that's all."

"Yeah," Finn spat, "and since you came to town, she seems to be miserable. She's sadder than usual and she seems like she's a million miles away when I try to talk to her. She's never been like this before and the only thing that's changed is that you'reback so _you_ must be her problem."

Finn's accusation that Puck was making Rachel miserable nearly made him laugh in his former friend's face. He shook his head and stepped away from Finn, walking out into the yard before turning around to glower at Finn with his hands on his hips. "If Rachel's miserable, maybe it's because talking to me reminds her that there's more to life than this shitty town and that she gave up _everything_, her dreams, her chances at being famous, _shit_, even her talent, to stay here with you."

"Rachel doesn't regret that stuff," Finn volleyed defensively. "She's happy with our life."

Puck let out a snort. "She's not happy, dude. I knew that the first time I saw her again. It's written all over her face. If you think she was happy before I got here it's just obvious that you weren't paying her any fucking attention!"

"That's bullshit. I know my wife, dude. She's my wife. I've been married to her for eight years and we've been together for, like, _ever._"

Puck scrubbed his hand over his short hair and paced a few steps forward. "Do you even _remember _Rachel from high school? She had this light in her eyes, man, when she talked about Broadway or Barbra Streisand or Judy Garland or about those awful fucking shows that I'd never even heard of, her eyes _shined _with dreams and hopes and all this desire. Have you looked at her eyes lately? That fire and that obsessive passion that drove everybody nuts? It's fucking _gone."_

Finn stared Puck down and when he swallowed hard, Puck could see his Adam's apple bouncing from the force. After averting his gaze down to the grass, he said, "You know what, Puck? That's not for you to worry about. When you leave, I'm gonna be the one that's here for her." He lifted his head and connected his gaze with Puck's. "She's _mine, _dude."

"Like I don't fucking know that," Puck seethed. "Like I haven't known that for thirteen goddamn years now." Anger at Finn seemed to swell inside him and it felt like the pent-up fury he'd been holding back since he was a teenager. He itched to stick his fist in Finn's face but he knew that if he did, he probably wouldn't see Rachel again and at the very crux of all of this was Rachel.

Finn looked smug at the obvious rage rolling through Puck. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked off in the distance toward his house. "Stay away from her, Puck. She doesn't need you filling her head with shit that's never gonna happen. She has a life here – me, her dads, her career, the glee club. _Lima _is where she wants to be. If you're really her friend, you won't try to make her think she doesn't want that stuff because she does."

"And if you really love her, don't you think you're the _one _person on this entire goddamn planet that should be pushing her to do what makes her happy? Because it isn't teaching fourth graders how to sing or cooking your fucking dinners every night that makes her happy. Rachel may have changed a lot in the last ten years but some things about her – the things she's loved since she was tiny – will never change, regardless of how shitty she's let her life become."

Finn shuffled from one foot to the other and glanced back at Puck. "Just leave her alone."

"Go fuck yourself, Hudson, and get off my property." Spinning on his heels, Puck stormed past Finn and into the house, slamming the door behind him and turning the lock. When he looked back out a few minutes later, his yard was empty; Finn was gone.

* * *

><p>The tension was so thick in her house that Rachel could practically feel it crackling in the air. When she'd walked in from her flight with Noah the night before, Finn had been waiting for her. He had wordlessly chastised her with a single, pointed glare before disappearing out the front door. When he returned 20 minutes later, he'd barely spoken to Rachel and had gone to bed early.<p>

All the next day, Rachel had been on edge. She knew Finn was mad and she had a feeling (call it intuition) that he had found out about all the time she was spending with Noah. Because of that fact, she had avoided going to visit Noah all day on Saturday, even though she kept catching herself gazing out the window in the direction of the Puckerman house.

While she scrubbed the countertop and tried to listen to her iPod, her mind drifted back to the plane ride and subsequent kiss the night before. Her heart began to thud against her rib cage the very moment she remembered the feeling of Noah's lips against hers. That intense rush of desire that zipped down her spine was quickly squashed by the heavy weight of guilt. _I'm a married woman. I'm a married woman. I'm a married woman. _That single thought rolled around and around in her head for hours and by the time Finn walked into the house on Sunday night, the dusky blue of twilight had long since slid into the black of night and Rachel's nerves were in a frazzled knot.

Finn kicked off his shoes by the door and dropped onto the couch. Rachel timidly walked up behind him, forcing a smile on her face as she asked, "How was your day?"

"Fine."

Rachel waited for him to say more and when he didn't, she stepped in front of the television and said, "I know you're mad at me, Finn. Can we talk about it?"

"Did you spend all day with him?"

Rachel swallowed and shook her head back and forth vigorously. "No, I haven't talked to him today."

"Surprising. According to Mr. Maynard, you've been over there a hell of a lot lately."

Rachel gaped at him, disbelief at what she'd just heard momentarily stunning her. "You're checking up on me?"

Finn lifted his legs onto the coffee table and crossed his legs before he met Rachel's look with eyes that seemed to radiate anger. "I don't really think of it as checking up on you. He came in to have some work done and told me that my wife had been spending a lot of time down the street with Miriam Puckerman's boy. I didn't ask; he offered." His glare turned into an amused smirk. "Are you fucking him?"

"What?" Rachel gasped. "Finn, no! It's innocent!"

Finn dropped his legs back onto the carpet and then stood up. "If it's not sex, why the hell are you with him so much?"

Rachel looked away, guilt at her attention to Noah weighing on her. "Because he listens to me. Because it's nice to talk to someone that I haven't seen in a long time. Because I missed his friendship. Because he seems to understand me."

Finn let out a snort and shook his head. "Really? Because he thinks you're miserable and that you aren't happy with our life. I told him that was bullshit but he had all kinds of excuses for why you aren't happy."

Rachel looked away guiltily. She'd already lied to Finn in claiming that things with Noah were completely innocent and she didn't want to lie further.

Finn stared at her, his jaw flexing as he seemed to clench his teeth. "Rach? You _are _happy, right?"

Tears burned the back of Rachel's eyes and her throat felt constricted. She knew she needed to hold back because the truth could devastate Finn. But when she stood staring at him in their living room, she felt like the floodgates had opened. "No, Finn, I'm not happy."

Finn seemed stunned at Rachel's confession and, even in her upset state, she found herself oddly amused at him, unable to fathom how he could be so oblivious. He blinked at her once, twice, before finally standing up and pacing toward her, the look on his face a mix of hurt and anger. "How the _hell _are you not happy? Nothing's changed from the way it was before Puck got here but all of the sudden, you're not happy?"

A tear leaked out of Rachel's eye as she weighed her answer. The fact that Finn was so blind to everything made her breath quicken with either frustration or rage – she didn't know which. She tightened her fists at her sides and stared him down when she answered, "If you think I've only been unhappy since Noah's been back in town, you just proved something major, Finn. You don't _notice_ that I'm unhappy. You either don't notice or you don't care."

Finn's face fell a bit at that but he regarded her silently for a few seconds. "I care, Rachel. I've always cared about your happiness."

"Then why do I feel alone? Why have I felt alone for years? I shouldn't feel like I'm a lonely, single woman when I'm _married _yet I do. You're never home and when you are, you have two concerns: food and ESPN. We never spend time together, we've never _once _decided to pack up for a long weekend away from home."

"That's not true!" Finn countered quickly. "We went to Hawaii."

Rachel let out a sad laugh as another tear slid down her cheek. "That was our _honeymoon, _Finn. That was the last time you agreed to actually leave the shop for a while and go away with me."

Finn looked panicked at first but then Rachel saw a look of confidence pass over his features and he smiled at her. "If vacations make you happy, we'll go on vacations. All you had to do was say something. The problem is that you never asked."

"Finn," Rachel pleased, "it's not _just _vacations. That's one tiny little percentage of why I'm not happy." She paced a few steps away from him and stared out the slats in the blinds. Outside, darkness had settled over Lima but for once, Rachel felt like light was illuminating her because she finally had an avenue to put a voice to the misery inside her. "It's a lot of things, Finn. I hate my job. I hate this house. I hate waking up every single day knowing that _this _is it, that it'll never get any better than it is right that second. We have no passion in our lives." Spinning back to face him, Rachel asked, "Do you remember the last time we made love?"

Finn blanched at her question and when he didn't answer, Rachel nodded and wiped away a tear. "Yes, I know, I don't remember either. Finn, that's _sad. _ I'm still young, Finn, and I'm not a nun. But you don't _ever _touch me because you're too tired or because you have to get up early. I understand that you work hard but it's been a long time since I think you even gave a single _thought _about my needs."

"We can change all that," Finn fired back quickly. "I'll take time off, we'll paint the house, we'll have tons of sex. All this can be fixed, Rach, I know it can."

"Can it?" Rachel was disbelieving. "You decided when we were still teenagers that the best life for us was a life in Lima and because I was absolutely _blind _with devotion to you, I agreed. Ever since then, I've been convincing myself that I made the right decision when I said goodbye to my dreams of being on the stage. For a long time, what we had was enough." Rachel took a deep breath in a vain attempt to bolster her courage. "But it's not anymore."

"How can you say that?" Finn's voice was suddenly loud and angrier than she'd ever heard him and it scared her. She flinched as he stepped toward her and grabbed her wrist, his eyes imploring. "Don't you care about my feelings at all, Rachel? Don't you care that what you're saying makes me feel like I'm not enough for you?"

Rachel jerked her arm away, her sadness temporarily dislocated by a stab of anger that burned in her sternum. Her dark eyes zoned in on him and she laughed. "I don't care about _your _feelings? Oh my God, Finn, can you hear yourself right now? All I ever _do _is worry about how you are and how you feel and what you need." She shook her finger at him as an idea came to her. "What did I get you for your last birthday?"

Finn appeared confused by her question and it took him a moment to answer. "Field passes for the Browns vs. Redskins game."

"And why did I get that for you?"

"Because the Browns are my favorite team and because I said that's what I really wanted."

Rachel felt a little bit like a lawyer as she nodded at him, crossed her arms, and paced back and forth in front of him. "And what did you get me for my last birthday?"

Finn's confused look slid into a smile. "A new grill."

"Right!" Rachel exclaimed, her arms in the air. "And I don't eat meat, Finn! And what is primarily the purpose of a grill? To cook slabs of dead animal. _You're _the one that has used that grill. I haven't once touched it because I don't _need _to. I have a thousand good ways to fix vegetable dishes and I've never needed a grill." She connected her gaze with his. "But do you remember what I actually _asked _for?"

Finn stared at her. No answer came.

Rachel sighed sadly. "I asked for you to do something special for me. I told you that I didn't care if it cost a single dime and that I _just _wanted some time to feel like I was the most special thing in your life."

"And I did that! I got you a _grill._"

Rachel's mouth fell open, another barrage of questions ready to spew forth before she stopped herself. There was no point. There was truly _no _point. For thirteen years, he'd been the focus of her life. But not _once _had it felt like he was the focus of hers. Shaking her head, Rachel said, "I'm done talking about this and I'm going to bed."

She turned to head toward the stairs before Finn's voice stopped her. "So you're not going to see Puck anymore, right? Because once he's gone, you'll stop feeling this way. He's bad news, Rachel. He's always been nothing but a loser and that's all he's ever gonna be. Don't let that influence you."

Rachel nearly felt bowled over by resentment. Before she even realized what she was doing, she was standing just inches away from Finn, glaring at him. "Don't you _dare _say that about Noah Puckerman! He's a Naval aviator, Finn. He's a Navy _officer, _he's well-respected in his profession, he's a good pilot, and he's an _amazing _father. Just because you're jealous of him doesn't mean you have to put him down."

Finn's jaw flexed and Rachel could see the anger flash through his eyes. "I'm not jealous of him. I have nothing to be jealous of. So what if he's in the Navy or whatever? Big fucking deal. Just because he got out of Lima doesn't make him hot shit."

"Why do you hate him so much?" Rachel asked softly.

Finn swallowed and glanced high above her head so that he wouldn't have to meet her eyes. "Because you've _always _gravitated toward him. And because he's always loved you."

Rachel gaped at her husband, unable to find a response. When she let a few seconds pass of silence, Finn shook his head and waved his hand at her as if to dismiss her. "I'm going to bed."

Finn pushed past her and disappeared into the dark part of the house. Rachel stood still for a few minutes longer as she worked to even her breathing out. Then, as if she were on auto-pilot, she slipped out the front door and headed down the sidewalk.

…

Rachel knew it was late but she didn't care. There was a light still burning in the Puckerman front room so she knew that Noah was probably still up and even if the house was dark, she probably still would have knocked.

Noah pulled open the door, his face registering confusion at her late hour visit. "Rach? Everything okay?"

"Yes. No." She pushed past him and into the house before turning to meet his eyes. "I don't know. Everything's a mess. I got into a huge fight with Finn that turned into a discussion about why our marriage stinks and then that turned into him being convinced that _you're_ just a bad influence and that once you leave, I'll go back to being happy with our life."

Noah slid his hands into his pockets and watched her silently for what felt like ages. Finally, he said, "And then you came here."

Rachel nodded, suddenly worrying that it was the wrong thing to do. "I'm sorry, Noah. I don't mean to drag you into the disaster of my marriage but…" Her chest heaved and her eyes burned with tears as she admitted, "But you're the only person I can talk to that actually _hears _me. Finn literally ignores everything I says or just refuses to believe what I say is true. And my dads' answer to everything is that I just need to give it more time but Noah, I don't know how much more time I have to give." She blinked at the tears pooling on her lashes. "I'm so tired of it all."

"Then go after what you want, Rachel. It's pretty simple."

Rachel smiled at him because he seemed to think it was so simple. "How? How do I just go after what I want when that means I'd have to leave everything else behind?"

Noah shrugged. "Fuck, I don't know, but you're Rachel _Berry._" She started to correct him but he shook his head, effectively cutting her off. "Deep down, under all the Hudson baggage that keeps you trapped like a prisoner, you're _still _the girl who wanted everything too much. You _still _do, baby, that's why you're so fucking miserable. You want everything and you get nothing. So just say 'fuck it' and go after it."

"It's not that simple."

Smirking, Noah reached for her. She let herself be pulled against him and sighed as she pressed her cheek to his chest. "It _is _that simple," he assured her, his voice muffled as he spoke into her hair. "You're not gonna be happy until you grab life by the balls and take back your fucking happiness."

Rachel chuckled against his chest and tipped her head back to peer up at him. His eyes twinkled with mischief but she also saw concern in him. It was then that she realized that he'd _always _looked at her that way. He'd always cared about her, even when he was just a 16-year-old kid. It made her throat constrict and she tightened her arms around him. He peered down at her and time seemed to suspend between them for the longest time before he bent his head toward hers. She pushed up on her toes, their mouths meeting in the middle.

The kiss was searing; Noah's lips moved over her mouth and down along her jaw lightly but she reveled in the heat from him. He felt so warm, so alive, and all she wanted to do was hold on tightly and see if he could make her fly without ever leaving the ground.

Rachel wound her arms around his neck and pushed her body toward hers. Her breasts rubbed against his chest, her nipples hardening into points from the feel of him touching her. She heard herself moan his name as she pushed her mouth against hers and seconds later, he was picking her up and carrying her to the couch. He dropped them both into the cushions, her legs landing on either side of his thighs so that she straddled him. They stared at one another for a heartbeat before he wove his hands into her hair and pulled her mouth down to his. She mewled against his lips and then her head lulled back when he dragged his lips down her chin, sucking on the tender skin below her jaw. His mouth moved over her body until he hit the edge of her shirt and then he moved back along her collarbone.

Rachel was out of her head. She could feel him beneath her; he was already hard. She shifted her hips experimentally, sliding against his length. Noah moaned and gripped her hips, his eyes so dark with lust that it shot a thrill through her. She found herself tugging up his shirt and then her hands were gliding over his smooth shoulders and thick, strong biceps. His fingers danced over her knees and up over her shorts. When he got to the bottom of her shirt, he seemed to pause, his eyes wary as though he was asking for permission. Even though Rachel didn't think he needed it, she nodded at him. His fingers moved quickly over the buttons on her shirt and then it was pushed open and one of the cups of her bra tugged down. She cried out his name when his mouth surrounded her nipple, her fingers pressing into his scalp to keep him _right there. _

"_Noah_." Rachel rocked her hips against his erection and he pressed up against her in response. He pulled back from one breast to push her shirt off her shoulders and then she felt his hands move along her back until he was at the catch of her bra. She rolled her hips against him again, desperate to feel the weight and heat of him unobstructed by clothing. Her bra slid down her arms and she was quick to toss it away before wrapping her arms back around him. He sucked her nipple between his teeth, his tongue swirling the bud and then flicking it until Rachel heard herself whimpering.

She knew that they should stop but he felt _so _good. His mouth moved from one breast to the other, his fingers stroking first her sides, then her back. They dipped below the waistband of her shorts and into her panties and when she felt him cup her bottom, the heat of his palm made her gasp and grind herself against him. He felt _so good _that she didn't want it to end. She knew it had to end but she just needed a _little _more and she knew she would come. She hadn't had an orgasm in a very long time but now, with Noah hard between her thighs, even through the barriers of clothing, she was burning up and she knew it would only take a little bit more before she would soar.

Catching her lip between her teeth, she forced her eyes open and pressed herself down on him. She gripped his shoulders and then leaned in, her breath washing over his ear as she pleaded, "Make me come, Noah."

He seemed to still beneath her and when she pulled back to gaze at him, she could see that his eyes were stormy. She was putting him in a position that she knew wasn't fair. She had a husband just five houses down but all she wanted right then was for Noah Puckerman to do to her what she was too afraid to want years ago and what she knew he wanted, too.

Rachel bent to kiss him and he kissed her back feverishly. As their lips were locked, their tongues sliding against one another, she felt his hand slide between her legs. He pushed against the front of her panties, his fingers tapping out a steady, forceful rhythm against her bundle of nerves that was protected through two layers of clothing. Rachel rocked against his hand, softly chanting his name against his neck until the fuse burning inside her flared into a bright, blinding light. Rachel's hips rocked hard toward his hand, her mouth falling open in a silent, breathy moan as her orgasm rushed through her.

She slumped against him. Between her thighs, she could feel his cock throbbing against her and even though she was still gloriously delirious from her orgasm, she reached between them and attempted to unbutton his pants before his hand circled her wrist to stop her.

Rachel peered up at him, his eyes so dark that they looked like storm clouds. "Stop, Rach."

"But Noah," she argued softly, "I want to return the favor."

He swallowed so hard that she heard it in the quiet of the room. "Stop, Rach," he said again.

She blinked once, twice, before dropping her hand to her side and nodding silently. Tears blinded her as she quickly climbed from off his lap and reached for her bra. She turned her back on him as she put it on and then donned her shirt. Tears were falling freely now as she admonished herself for what had just happened.

"Rachel, don't leave."

She batted the tears away and turned to face him. He looked so gorgeous sitting there in nothing but his jeans. He was still hard; she could see his erection outlined clearly through the worn denim. Part of her ached to climb back into his lap and finish what they started but the look in his eyes told her that it wouldn't happen.

"I'm sorry, Noah."

He stood up then, shifting uncomfortably before stalking toward her. He cupped her face in his hands and shook his head, murmuring, "Don't apologize. I fucking want you more than anything…but we already did too much and it's only gonna make things harder on you."

Rachel nodded silently at the truth of his words. Tears streaked down her cheeks, which were still flushed pink from the incredible orgasm she'd had just moments before. She couldn't understand how her body still quaked with aftershocks while her heart felt like it was breaking. "I have to go."

Noah seemed to tighten his hold on her and when she looked up at him, his jaw was squared and tight. "Don't go home to him like this."

"I'm not," she whispered softly. "Just let me go."

When his grip loosened on her and his hands fell away, an inexplicable sadness clawed at her insides. She gave him a look that she knew would be hard to read because she couldn't even understand what she was feeling. Lust, regret, need, hope, guilt, heartbreak, anger – it all rolled around inside her, leaving her breathless and confused. She took a step back from him and then glanced at the door.

"Rach, wait."

She shook her head and said softly, "Leave me alone, Noah." Darting her gaze toward the floor, she swiped at the tears that still ran down her cheeks, turned, and fled.

* * *

><p>He was leaving Lima as soon as possible. By Monday night, Puck realized that he wasn't even going to make it the full month he'd committed to before having to get the hell out of town. He hadn't heard from Rachel since he'd stopped her from unbuttoning his pants and she'd fled in tears the night before. He'd thought about hunting her down but he had no idea if she was back at home with Finn, with her dads, or somewhere else entirely. And once he'd found her, he knew he'd have no idea what to say. They'd crossed a thousand lines that shouldn't have been crossed the night before. Hell, they'd been doing it since the moment he'd gotten back into town. And now things were so fucked up between them that Puck had begun to wonder if Finn wasn't right – what if he <em>was <em>the reason Rachel was so miserable? It was best he just did as she asked and left her alone.

As Monday turned into Tuesday, Puck was still awake, frantically cramming things into boxes. Becca, who knew without him having to tell her that something was up, had told him that she could finish up the house if he wanted to get an early jump on going back to Maryland. He'd kissed his little sister on the forehead and thanked her before shoving a wad of cash into her hand so she could get the rest of the work done without him. The realtor was scheduled to come on Friday and as soon as she was gone, Puck and Jack were hitting the road.

Puck loaded some pictures that he wanted to take with him into a box and then shoved newspaper in to make sure the glass didn't break. He taped up the box, wiped at his brow, and let out a heavy sigh. He couldn't wait to go home. Back to Pax River. Back to familiarity. Back to the life he loved. Away from Lima. Away from Finn and Rachel Hudson.

As the old grandfather clock that sat in the corner of the living room chimed 3am, Puck yawned and glanced around the nearly-bare room. An antique dealer was coming for the clock the next day. The furniture was being donated to Goodwill. By Friday, his mom's house – the house he grew up in – would be nearly an empty shell.

Puck flipped off the lights as he climbed the stairs to his old bedroom. Jack was asleep, curled up against the wall, his small fingers outspread against the blanket. Puck kept his eyes on his son as he tugged his shirt over his head and then pushed his jeans off his hips. Climbing into the bed in his boxers, he was careful to not disturb Jack as he arranged the blankets over his chest and got comfortable.

He had hoped that sleep would come easily. He was physically and mentally exhausted. He still ached over the loss of his mom and knew he probably always would. Knowing that his childhood home was going on the market caused more pain than he'd anticipated but he and Becca had agreed that neither one of them wanted to live in Lima so there was no sense in keeping the house.

Puck rolled over onto his side and stared out into his dark room. Everything had been packed up except for the bed he and Jack were sleeping in. Most of the work in his room had been done by, of all people, Rachel.

_Fuck. Rachel. _

He'd tucked his tail between his legs ten years ago and fled because the girl he loved hadn't loved him and now it was time to do it again. He'd grant her wish and leave her alone until Friday. And then he'd seek her out, tell her goodbye, and wish her luck. Maybe she _would _find happiness after he left town again. That's all he really wanted – for her to be happy. Everything else he wanted would never happen, anyway, so dwelling on it was pointless.

Puck turned onto his back again and felt Jack shift, scooting over to hug himself against his father. Puck dropped an arm around his son and closed his eyes, forcing sleep to come.

* * *

><p><strong>Next up:<strong> Puck prepares to leave and Rachel makes some painful choices.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note**: Sorry I didn't get to review replies with the last chapter. I went back to work this week and my life has been one insane moment after another!

* * *

><p>Perhaps seeking solace in the house she'd grown up in hadn't been such a good idea. That yellow-walled room with the white, four-poster bed was still decorated just as it had been when Rachel was in high school. The playbills for <em>Wicked, West Side Story, Oklahoma, <em>and other shows that she loved seemed to mock her from behind their places in the frames on her walls. Everywhere she turned in that room, she was reminded of her younger self, of the girl who had very much loved Finn Hudson but had still wanted to _own _the world via a Broadway stage. In some ways, Rachel felt like she was staying in a stranger's room. She'd gone so far off course from the determined girl she once was that it frightened her. How had she let it happen?

Rachel had fled to the Berry home after leaving Noah in his mother's living room on Sunday night and since then, she'd had numerous conversations with her fathers. They'd all stayed up late that first night, going through two pots of decaf coffee as Rachel spoke with lips still swollen from Noah's kisses. She was relieved that they had let her tell her story without interruptions or questions. When she was done, they knew it all. About Finn and his blind spot when it came to her happiness. About her discontent. About Noah's arrival and how, oddly enough, it felt like a turning point in her life. And after she was done speaking, Rachel waited for them to admonish her, to yell at her for not supporting her husband more. The two of them were, after all, happy in Lima so why shouldn't she be, too? But that hadn't happened; the chastisement she expected never came. Daddy had smoothed his hand over her hair and Dad had kissed her forehead before he told her, "You have a lot to figure out, Kitten. You either love Finn or you don't. And if you don't, it's time you make some changes. We'll support you either way."

Now it was Tuesday morning. The sun had not yet dawned over Lima but Rachel was wide awake beneath the yellow chenille bedspread, her eyes on the darkened ceiling above. She hadn't seen Finn since Sunday and surprisingly, he hadn't sought her out. Noah hadn't either.

The familiar burn deep inside her chest started to prickle all over again when she thought about Noah and what happened between them. Her face flushed hot, desire thrumming through her each and every time she recalled the wonton way in which she'd begged him for release. Rachel closed her eyes against the memory, the heady mix of lust and humiliation over the whole ordeal leaving her just as confused as ever. She hadn't had such an instantaneous reaction to Finn in years. In fact, she couldn't even remember the last time that the air crackled with sparks when they were together. Passion between them had fizzled out long ago. Rachel knew that there was more to a marriage than passion but to her, the lack of desire they felt toward one another was indicative of the problem with the rest of their marriage – the connection they once shared had long since dissolved. All that held them together was a legal piece of paper and a scrapbook full of joint memories.

Rachel's mind floated back to Noah as she rolled over and attempted to stretch beneath the blankets. She knew Noah would leave soon. His time in Lima was nearly up but after what had transpired between them, she assumed he'd cut his stay short and take Jack back to Maryland as soon as possible. The thought of them leaving before she had a chance to say goodbye brought tears to her sore eyes all over again. She wasn't ready to say goodbye to him even if they hadn't spoken in a couple of days. He'd left once and it had hurt. His leaving this time around, though, would be devastating, she feared. Rachel turned onto her side and pulled her legs up as she felt the first tear slip down her cheek. Unsure of whom or even what she was even crying for, she let tears overtake her until her breathing evened out and she slipped back into sleep.

…

By Tuesday evening, Rachel had come to only one important decision: she needed to talk to Finn. He had made no effort to contact her since Sunday but she knew that there was so much that they needed to discuss. He had spent time milling over their argument since then, right? She'd replayed their words over and over again in her head a thousand times since then so she knew he had to have done the same.

After dinner, she slipped her feet into her favorite pair of flip-flops and grabbed the keys to her car off the table by the door, announcing she'd be back soon. She drove the few blocks to Folton Street, slowing as she cruised past the Puckerman house. The lights were burning brightly inside and her chest ached with the overwhelming urge to stop and talk to Noah. She had so much she needed to say to him…but first, she had to speak to her husband.

Even from a few houses down, she could tell that their house was totally dark. Finn's car was also gone, which Rachel found curious since he usually walked to and from the tire shop. After passing her house and turning the corner, she soon pulled up to the front of the shop but it, too, was dark. Even after they closed, lights would be burning in the work bays as Finn continued to fix customers' cars to stay caught up with the work load. But on that night, there was no sign of him anywhere. It left Rachel perplexed and wondering where he could be as she drove back to the Berry home.

…

Finn remained elusive both Wednesday and Thursday. When Rachel stopped by the tire shop again on Thursday for the fifth time in two days, it was open but Finn wasn't there. Ed told her that he'd left early in the morning and hadn't said when he'd be back. The mysterious disappearance of her husband was anything but comforting as Rachel backed her car out of the lot and drove aimlessly through Lima. After making random turns, Rachel ended up inside sprawling Farout Park.

_It's not Central Park, that's for sure, _Rachel found herself thinking as she drove over the winding road that wove through the expanse. The park had limited acreage but it always had heavy traffic because it was considered the best park in town. As she drove on, she neared the playground area and slowed her speed, mindful of all the little kids that were probably running around on that warm spring day. A familiar truck parked alongside the road caught her off guard and seconds later, she spotted a little boy with a mohawk sliding down the biggest slide, a happy grin on his face.

Rachel's heart constricted at the sight of Jack and in an instant, she pulled her car over and parked in the grass. She was far enough away that she knew neither Jack nor Noah would spot her but she could easily see them. Noah was leaning against a tree at the edge of the playground, his cell phone in his hand. He seemed to stare blankly at the screen for a moment before he pushed it back into his pocket and turned to watch his son. He looked so tall and strong standing there that Rachel yearned for him. He'd made her feel so amazing the other night and, although she knew not to get caught up in sexual feelings and confuse them for anything more than just simple desire, she couldn't help but feel like she _needed _him. Everything had gone topsy turvy since Noah's arrival and part of Rachel wanted to thank him. Without him to help open her eyes, she might never be ready to move forward with her life. And sitting there in her car, her eyes on Noah and Jack Puckerman, Rachel realized that she _was _ready to move her life in a new direction.

Rachel let out a gasp and gripped the steering wheel tighter as it hit her. She _knew _what she had to do. She put her car into gear again and drove away from the park, leaving Jack and Noah to their sunny afternoon. It pained her to leave Noah there without speaking to him but there were things she had to take care of first. When she spoke to Noah, she needed things squared away.

Once she got back to her fathers' house, she was glad to see that they were both home. She darted into the house and then asked them if she could talk to them both. As they sat on the sofa and stared at her, Rachel began to ramble. The longer she spoke, the more confident she sounded and to Rachel, that was a strong signal that she was making the right choice.

Three hours later, she was back in the driveway of the house she shared with Finn. Relieved to see that his car was there for once, she let herself inside the house. Her throat was tight as she shut the door behind her and when she turned, Finn was standing in the entry hall staring at her. Rachel took a deep breath and steeled herself as she asked, "Finn, can we talk?"

* * *

><p>The sunny blue sky had turned heavily overcast by the time Puck parked his truck in front of the office at Allen County Airport late Thursday afternoon. Becca was at the house with Jack, making a list of the few things that still needed to be done. Once he and Jack had returned from the park, he had worked around the house but found himself restless, pacing through the rooms and looking out the windows that faced the direction of Rachel's house over and over again. At 4pm, Becca finally snapped and yelled at him to get his ass out of the house for a while before she ripped her hair out. He'd gladly taken the chance to get out for a while and was sad to see that Rachel's house looked empty as he'd driven by. She'd told him to leave her alone and that's what he had done but he longed to see her again. He hated that their last interaction was of her crying and leaving. He knew she had to be hurt and confused because he was confused as hell about <em>everything<em>.

Once he had the keys to the Cessna Skyhawk in his hands again, Puck made quick work of getting in the air. Twenty minutes after arriving at the airport, he was lifting the small airplane's wheels off the runway and climbing high into the sky until he broke through the low cloud cover and slowed his ascent. He evened the wings out and relaxed into the leather pilot's seat. Below him, clouds spread over Lima like a blanket. They were thick, their tops bubbling up like sea foam and brilliantly white, illuminated by the sun. Above and stretching out in front of him for as far as he could see was nothing but blue sky. It beckoned him, propelled him onward and he flew with little care toward where he was headed. Instrumentation would ensure he got back to where he came from so he meandered over the Ohio countryside, glancing below the aircraft during breaks in the clouds. From his vantage point, Ohio was more beautiful than it ever could be when he stood on the ground. Everything looked better from the air.

As he flew, Puck's brain clicked through everything that still needed to be done with the house. Furniture was being carted away piece by piece thanks to ads on Craigslist and Freecycle. Everything Becca wanted to keep was being picked up by her boyfriend later that day to be stored in his parents' basement until she found an apartment she liked in Columbus. The things Puck wanted to take back to Pax River with him were being piled up in the garage, ready to be loaded into the back of his truck the next morning. Jack had spent the evening before going through all of Puck's old toys, deciding what was worth keeping and what should be tossed away. Then he'd run around the house playing with his dad's old toys until bedtime, a smile on his face so huge that Puck had to snicker.

For a moment, Puck let his mind wander to his mom. He couldn't count the number of times he'd instinctively reached for his phone to call her, only to stop himself when he realized that he couldn't. It was during those moments that the acute pain of losing her stabbed his gut like a knife. He hoped that it would lessen with time because he sure as hell couldn't live with that kind of pain forever. Now that her house was basically an empty shell, it had lost the scents that had made it seem like home. Cinnamon and wax from his mother's ever-present candles had been replaced by the harsh smell of Pledge, bleach, and Comet. Now the surfaces of the kitchen gleamed like they were new and the Puckerman family was eating on paper plates and only buying take-out so that the kitchen wouldn't be messed up for the realtor. It didn't feel like home anymore and Puck supposed that it really wasn't. Home was where Jack was, where Puck's career was, where his future would be. Home was Pax River, Maryland.

After a while in the air, Puck finally let himself think about Rachel. He'd been trying to put her out of his mind since Sunday but it hadn't worked. He felt a lot of things – frustration that he couldn't have her like he wanted, sadness that he was about to leave again, the overwhelming need to make a vow that once he left Lima, he'd never see her again. She was too dangerous. She was everything he'd wanted since he was a stupid, 16-year-old asshole with a slushie in his hand and no other way to deal with the crush he had on the girl who wasn't part of the "popular" crowd but to toss the frozen drink in her face and laugh. He was now 28 and she was still just as elusive to him as ever. Yeah, they'd gotten a chance to grow closer and he could mark "make Rachel Berry come" off the list of things he'd never done but at the end of the day, he was still leaving Lima without her. Again.

That thought soured Puck immediately and as he banked the plane and turned back toward the airport, he realized that, regardless of the way things were left between them, he was going to say goodbye to her this time. He hadn't all those years ago. After she'd rejected him, he'd packed his bag and left as soon as possible, eager to forget her memory and everything having to do with her and their hometown. He spent all of basic training missing her, though, and it sucked. The only thing that had eased the pain of her rejection was the fact that he wouldn't have to see her again so that she could humiliate him further. But he was a grown man now and things had transpired between them that meant he _had _to see her one more time, even if it was just to say goodbye.

Puck landed the plane at exactly the three hour mark but left it on the tarmac because someone else was waiting to refill it with fuel and take it up. He hopped into his truck and headed back toward town, filled with the temporary contentedness that only came from flying. It wouldn't last, he knew, and in a matter of hours, the restlessness that seemed to dog his last days in Lima would be back. He was relieved that he could leave tomorrow and put it all behind him once and for all.

…

The "For Sale" sign in the front yard was sobering. The realtor, a bubbly red head named Jan, droned on and on to Becca about the chances for a quick sale while Jack rode up and down the street on the purple bicycle one more time. Jack had begged his dad to let him take the bike back to Pax River but Puck hadn't given in. Jack had a much nicer bike back home and he didn't need to cart that rickety, purple disaster all the way back to Maryland.

Once Jan had left, Puck and Becca stared awkwardly at one another. Finally, his sister walked toward him and the two embraced. He heard her sniffle against his shirt and he kissed the top of her head and murmured, "You're gonna come see us in Maryland, right?"

Becca bobbed her head and pulled back to swipe at her eyes with her hand. "I will. Once I get settled in my apartment, I'll come spend a few weeks before school starts again. I'm gonna miss your dumb face so much."

Puck laughed and pulled her into another hug, his own eyes burning at the unexpected display of emotion by his normally guarded sister. They hugged until it felt weird to continue and then they both stepped away. Puck's gaze automatically turned toward Rachel's house and when he felt his sister nudge him in the arm, he turned to look down at her. "Go say goodbye."

"I probably should, shouldn't I?"

"Unless you wanna maybe tell her that you're still stupid in love with her and that she's a dumbass if she doesn't love you back, you should probably just go tell her goodbye." Becca let out a peal of laughter at the shocked look on her brother's face and shrugged. "I'm not dumb, big brother. Mom told me all about you and the whole 'Rachel Berry thing' years ago. I wondered if it would rear its ugly head once you came back to town and it sure as hell did, didn't it?"

Puck stared at Rachel's car sitting in the driveway. "But she's married," he mumbled.

"Yeah, and based on the sound of her begging you to get her off the other night, I don't think she's _happily _married."

Whipping his head back toward his sister again, Puck groaned, "Holy _fuck, _Becca, you heard that?"

"I was still awake, dumbass. I'm not as oblivious as you think I am." Shaking her head, she added, "Jesus, you're kinda stupid sometimes."

Puck gaped at his sister before he shook his head, grinned, and rubbed at the back of his neck. "I guess I'll go tell her I'm leaving now."

Becca nodded. "I'll watch Jack."

Puck murmured his thanks and then ruffled Jack's hair as he rode by on the bicycle again. When he got to the top of Rachel's front step and stood in front of her door, he realized that he had _no _idea what the hell he was supposed to say. Deciding he'd wing it, he knocked on the door and found himself holding his breath until it opened.

Rachel was standing on the other side and her eyes were puffy from crying. She stepped back silently to let Puck inside and once he was standing in front of her, he stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. No. Not really."

Puck swallowed hard and wondered why his mouth suddenly felt like it was laden with sawdust. "I…I'm… going back to Maryland today and I just wanted to tell you goodbye."

Rachel bobbed her head in acknowledgement and then squeezed her eyes shut. A tear leaked from one of her eyes and when she opened them again, she said, "I'm divorcing Finn."

Puck's mouth opened and he stared at Rachel, watching as she wrapped her arms tightly around herself as though she were fending off the cold. She looked away and then looked back up at Puck before urging him on. "Say something, Noah."

Unable to stop himself, he blurted out, "Come with me."

"Wh—what?" Rachel stammered.

"Come with me. Well, with _us. _Back to Pax River."

Rachel began to shake her head in protest but Puck stepped forward, looping his fingers around her wrist so that she couldn't retreat. "Seriously, come with us. I know you're not happy and everything's fucked up but if you come with us, I'll make sure you're never sad again. You want New York, I'll get you to New York. You wanna teach snot-nosed kids on base how to sing, I'll make it happen. But I swear if you go with me, baby, you'll never _once _have to wonder if you're loved or if you made the right decision. I'll spend every damn moment making sure you know how much I love you and that you can own the fucking world if you want. You'll never regret going with me, I promise."

His heart hammered against his rib cage by the time he stopped speaking and when his eyes locked with Rachel's, tears were streaming down her face. He threaded his fingers through her hair and tilted her head toward his so that he could brush his lips over hers. "Please, baby," he whispered against her mouth, "don't make me leave Lima without you again."

Rachel pulled away and turned her back on him as she wiped away her tears. He saw her shoulders shake and felt like the world was slipping out from under him all over again. When she turned around to face him, though, she was grinning through her tears. "Give me an hour to pack. I'll meet you at your truck."

"What?" Puck was in shock. "Wh—you me—you're coming?"

"Yes," Rachel laughed through her tears. "I've been crying because I saw you loading your truck and I knew you were leaving today." She stepped toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck, gazing up at him as she admitted, "I've been trying to figure out what to say to you all morning and I knew my time was running out but… I don't want you to leave without me this time."

Puck blinked at her, barely able to process what he was hearing. Rachel pushed up on her toes and kissed him before pulling away again. "Get moving, Noah! I have so much to do in the next hour. Make room for me, though, because I can pack a lot in sixty minutes!" Rachel darted away from him and disappeared down the hall. From a room in the back, he heard her yell, "See you in a bit!"

Laughing but dazed, Puck let himself out of her house and headed back toward where Becca and Jack stood together on the sidewalk.

"Daddy, are we ready to go?" Jack asked as Puck approached.

Puck shook his head as he worked to suppress his grin. "Nope, buddy, we gotta wait an hour." Becca cocked her head to one side quizzically and Puck tried to act casual when he added, "We're taking Rachel with us when we go."

Jack began jumping up and down on the sidewalk as Becca gawked. Then they turned to one another and Becca bent down so that Jack could give her a high-five. "Told you!" Becca told her nephew. "I _told_ you she'd end up going with you guys! You owe me five bucks, little man!"

Turning toward Puck, Jack stuck out his hand. "I owe Aunt Becca five bucks 'cause I lost the bet. I tolded her there was no way Rachel was coming with us 'cause she lives here but I lost. Can I have five bucks?"

Puck jerked his wallet out of his back pocket and shoved at five dollar bill at his son. He'd never been so glad to be on the losing end of a bet in his life.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So originally, the fic ended here and I was planning on writing a follow-up piece. Instead, I decided to just write an epilogue so that we can catch up with Puck, Rachel, and Jack a little later in time. That will be the next (and last) chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

_**Epilogue**_

* * *

><p>She could do this.<p>

She could _do_ this.

Rachel could hear the rumble of the crowd, a cacophony of voices that mixed together in mindless chatter as they waited for the lights to go down and the red curtain to rise. Standing behind that same curtain, her breath was caught in her throat as she peeked out. She tried to blame her breathlessness on the musty, old smell of that heavy velvet drape but deep down, she knew better. This was _it. _

Rachel's eyes moved over the crowd, her heart hammering against her chest as she realized that they were going to have nearly a full house. _A full house. On my first night. _

As if he knew Rachel shouldn't be alone, she was suddenly joined by her director, a talented and up and coming theater genius named Vance. He smoothed a hand over the shoulder of her stiff wool jacket and grinned at her as he pulled the curtain aside to look out and then murmured to his leading lady, "You nervous?"

"No. Yes." Rachel inhaled deeply, then added, "A little, I suppose, but I can do this."

Vance's hand stopped moving and squeezed her shoulder before dropping to his side. He seemed relaxed as he peered out at the crowd again. When he turned back toward Rachel, he chuckled. "You're green, Rachel. You've got to calm down. You're going to be _fine._"

"I know," Rachel assured him because truthfully, she _did _know. "It's just that I haven't been on a stage since I was in college. It's been a long, long time."

"And you're a natural, darling, a frigging _natural_. I knew from the moment you walked into that audition that you were going to be my lead and not for one second have I regretted it. When that curtain goes up and that spotlight lands on you, you're going to blow them away, okay?"

Rachel snagged her lower lip between her teeth before bobbing her head and closing her eyes. She took a few deep breaths and when her lids popped open again, she flashed Vance a blinding smile.

"Are they out there?"

Her gaze flickering toward the crowd, she nodded. "Yes, they should be by now. Noah had an early morning flight to Chicago but Donald assured him that he'd be back in time."

Vance chuckled. "It must be nice to work for one of the richest men in New York. Tough gig for him, huh?"

Rachel beamed as she thought about Noah. When he'd decided to leave the Navy two years ago and move their family to New York City so that she could pursue her acting career, they'd ended up fighting about it for days.

"Noah, you can't give up your dreams!" she'd argued.

"Rachel, you have to go after yours!" he'd argued back.

In the end, he'd won and just a year after her divorce from Finn was final, Noah, Jack, and a very pregnant Rachel packed up their house in Pax River, Maryland, and moved to a brownstone in Brooklyn. Life in New York was simultaneously overwhelming and intoxicating. Rachel found that she had to pinch herself at least once a day because it just didn't seem real. All those years in Lima, all those hours staring at the same four walls and wondering if there was more to life, were all but forgotten once she stood at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street and realized that it felt like home.

It hadn't been easy for Noah to leave the Navy, though. At first, he'd been miserable and struggled to hide it from Rachel but she was too in tune with him not to notice. The birth of Joel Abel two months after they settled in Brooklyn had helped and six months after that, he gotten a job as the private pilot to one of New York's richest men. And Donald, who had millions thanks to a successful internet upstart that had taken off, was a tremendous boss. Even though he was always going places and needed Noah to get him there, he took great care to make sure that Noah was home for important events. He hadn't missed Jack's first day of first grade. He'd allowed Noah the entire weekend of Joel's first birthday off so that they could spend it as a family. And tonight, she knew, Noah was in the audience of the Beckett Theater, hopefully sitting near the front. She knew that next to him would be their sons as well as her fathers, who had flown in from Ohio the day before to see her stage debut in the off-Broadway production of a new musical called "All That You Are."

Standing there behind that curtain, Rachel realized that her life was nearly perfect. It was light years away from where she'd imagined she would be and _exactly_ what she'd allowed herself to hope for that day up on the Lima water tower with Noah. There was only one tiny imperfection in her life that needed correcting: she hated her name.

Rachel Berry was her legal name and would _always _be her stage name (she'd been envisioning it in lights since she was two years old) but her sons were Joel and Jack _Puckerman_. It was very simple – she needed to marry their father.

Noah had never pressured her to get married. Even when they found out she was pregnant just a short time after they'd started their lives together, he'd never once acted like it was something they _had _to do. She appreciated it very much because she was still wary of marriage thanks to her disastrous union to Finn. In fact, the idea of getting married again had been somewhat terrifying. It was the kind of thing that made her stomach roll and her brow break out into a cold sweat. She and Noah were already in such a groove and so committed to one another that they hadn't needed to be married - it wouldn't change anything. In fact, Noah had assured her once, "Baby, a piece of paper don't mean _shit_." But three years later, it was apparent to her that what they had was no longer enough. Noah had given up a career that he both loved and excelled at just so that she could try to make it in New York. The least she could do was give up her tiny little fear of marriage for him, _right? _

So Rachel Berry had a plan. As soon as she finished bringing the house down and amazing nearly everyone (critics included) with her talent, she was proposing to her boyfriend. Besides the lines and lyrics that were running through her head, she had a speech all ready for Noah. He'd say yes. She knew he would.

"Places! Places everyone!"

The hissing voice of the stage manager startled Rachel and pulled her from her deep reverie. Taking one last breath, she pushed her wide-brimmed, 1940s-era hat tightly down on her head and moved to her mark off stage. The curtain went up and immediately, the hum of the crowd dimmed into silence – not even a whisper. As the music swelled, Rachel's heart thumped a compatible beat against her rib cage but she wasn't scared. Exactly the opposite. She was _thrilled_.

She took a step forward as the spotlight hit her and then she opened her mouth, the first few lines of the initial song sounding clear and beautiful as she gave it all she had. This was _her_ moment, years in the making. The lights of the stage seemed to bolster her up and she could practically feel Noah's love radiating from the crowd. It propelled her through that song and as the crowd thundered their appreciation at the end of it, she was nearly blinded by tears.

It was going to be a good night.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note:<strong> And there we have it. Rachel got New York. (Her musical, "All That We Are" is totally made up by me but just so you know, in my head it's a World War II-era musical about a girl that falls in love with a Navy pilot before he goes off to war. Rachel felt it was the perfect role when she found out about it through her agent.)

Thanks for coming on this ride with me and I really appreciate the warm welcome y'all gave me when I decided to come back to fanfiction. You guys are great!


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